Evolutionary Insights by Anthropology.net

At a forgotten cemetery in Bristol, England, buried under the ruins of a 19th-century workhouse hospital, archaeologists unearthed something rare—human brains. Not mummies. Not bog bodies. Just soft, shriveled, centuries-old brains, unexpectedly intact. What these brains carried wasn't just the silent history of anonymous lives but a molecular archive that science has long struggled to access: the deep, hidden record of ancient human proteins.

Until recently, ancient soft tissues like brain, liver, or stomach were considered almost unusable for molecular analysis. Bones and teeth—yes. But the fragile complexity of internal organs? Not a chance. That tide has now shifted, thanks to new methods in paleoproteomics developed by researchers at the University of Oxford. Their results, published in PLOS ONE in May 2025, represent the most expansive protein profile ever recovered from archaeological soft tissue.

“Only about 10% of human proteins are expressed in bone,” noted the research team, “while more than 75% occur in internal organs. These soft tissues contain a far richer biological signature.”

By unlocking ancient soft tissues, the researchers opened a biochemical window into human life previously out of reach.

The Experiment: A Brain from a Workhouse

The team’s focal sample was SK 17999, an individual excavated from the grounds of the former Blackberry Hill Hospital in Bristol. Built atop a prison and later repurposed as a cholera hospital and workhouse, the site offers a unique historical blend of suffering, resilience, and forgotten lives. Remarkably, this individual’s brain was so well preserved that its sulci and gyri—the folds of the cerebral cortex—remained visible.

Ten subsamples of the brain were subjected to various protein extraction and clean-up protocols. Each method attempted to crack open the tightly coiled world of ancient molecules without destroying them.

One surprising winner? Urea. Yes, the same chemical found in urine.

“Urea lysis proved the most effective at breaking down preserved membrane structures, releasing a wider range of intracellular proteins, including those from the mitochondria and cytoskeleton,” according to the research findings.

This method delivered over 1,200 unique proteins, dwarfing the recovery from more traditional methods used for bones and teeth.

What the Proteins Reveal

Ancient proteins survive by folding into compact, stable shapes. Their resilience makes them ideal for tracking both the genetic and lived experience of past populations. And while DNA tells us what could be, proteins show what actually was—from disease and diet to brain function and possibly even mental health.

Among the findings were:

* Cytoskeletal proteins, such as tubulins and intermediate filaments, which were significantly enriched.

* Myelin proteolipid proteins, pointing to possible preservation of brain-specific neurological features.

* Evidence of diagenetic modifications, including deamidation and unusual peptide cleavage, which reflect both degradation over time and post-mortem chemical changes.

These protein "fingerprints" not only reveal aspects of brain physiology but also how ancient environments affected the chemical stability of soft tissues.

“The brain proteome is an order of magnitude more diverse than bone. This method helps capture that complexity,” the researchers wrote.

Why This Matters

This isn’t just a technical achievement. It’s a shift in what’s possible. Soft tissues, once dismissed as too fragile or contaminated for meaningful analysis, now offer a pathway to understanding disease, aging, diet, and social stress in ancient populations.

And because proteins can survive where DNA degrades, especially in acidic or warm environments, they could be pivotal in expanding bioarchaeological studies beyond the narrow corridor of well-preserved mummies or cold-climate remains.

For anthropologists and archaeologists, this means new lines of inquiry:

* What biomarkers of neurological disease can be detected in ancient populations?

* Can we use brain proteomics to explore the evolution of cognition or neurodegenerative disorders?

* How did post-mortem preservation differ across time periods, burial contexts, and climates?

Social Memory and Scientific Method

At a deeper level, these studies also touch on memory—both cultural and molecular. Brains are not just sites of thought and identity; in death, they may also preserve traces of societal conditions and lived experiences.

In this way, paleoproteomics becomes more than just an analytical method. It’s a mode of listening—to lives long past, etched not in inscriptions or oral history, but in folded proteins and biochemical scars.

Further Reading: Related Research

* Hendy, J., Warinner, C., et al. (2018). Proteomic evidence of dietary sources in prehistoric dental calculus. Nature Communications, 9, 3217. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05681-0

* Cappellini, E., Welker, F., et al. (2019). Ancient biomolecules and evolutionary inference. Annual Review of Biochemistry, 88, 653–683. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-biochem-013118-111817

* Demarchi, B., Hall, S., et al. (2016). Protein sequences bound to mineral surfaces persist into deep time. eLife, 5, e17092. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.17092

* Jersie-Christensen, R. R., et al. (2018). Paleoproteomics of the Cheddar Man: A British Mesolithic male. Journal of Proteome Research, 17(3), 1023–1032. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jproteome.7b00847

* Warinner, C., et al. (2015). Pathogens and host immunity in the ancient human oral cavity. Nature Genetics, 47(4), 336–344. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.3260

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In the deep time of Arabia’s human past, long before cities, scripts, or sultans, small groups of herders raised stones in the desert. These weren’t grand temples or sprawling cities. They were modest monuments—platforms, triliths, tombs—scattered across Oman’s Dhofar region. Yet they anchored communities, offering a social compass in a world growing ever more uncertain.

A new study published in PLOS ONE reconstructs 7,000 years of monument building in southern Arabia and argues that these humble stone structures represent more than funerary rites or territorial markers. They were resilient technologies—architectural responses to the changing social and ecological pressures of an increasingly arid world.

A Landscape of Memory and Survival

Platforms of Plenty

The oldest monuments in this record—massive sub-circular stone platforms—date back to the Holocene Humid Period (10,000–6,000 years ago), a time when monsoon rains fed inland lakes and seasonal grasslands bloomed along escarpments.

To build such a platform, stones weighing hundreds of kilograms had to be hoisted and balanced, often requiring “at least seven strong men,” the authors note. The sheer labor involved suggests coordinated gatherings of multiple families or herding groups.

"These large monuments that were built in one episode could only be built early on, before the region became arid," said lead author Joy McCorriston. "This is when large groups of people could still come together at one time."

These weren’t just functional structures. They signaled participation in a larger social fabric—monuments built during periodic feasts, ritual events, or clan gatherings, much like megaliths in prehistoric Europe or East African stone circles.

From Feast to Fragment

After about 6,000 years ago, rainfall across Arabia began to decline. Desertification intensified by 2,700 years ago. Water grew scarcer, forage patchier. Populations dispersed.

The archaeological record reflects this shift. Monument construction continued—but at smaller scales. The next major type, the “HCT” or high circular tomb, used fewer and smaller stones, suggesting that builders worked in smaller groups, likely under more constrained conditions. These tombs weren’t just burials; they were social anchors for thinning pastoral networks.

"The appearance of Bronze Age tombs suggests that resilient people now forged social identities and mediated access to resources through kinship with memorialized dead," the authors explain.

The architecture of resilience evolved again with triliths—simple triads of upright stones built into low gravel mounds. Unlike the earlier monuments, triliths were constructed incrementally, often by separate groups over time.

"In many cases, they were building a memory. They come to a monument and add their piece, which was a replicated element of the whole. It helped people maintain a community, even with those they may rarely see," McCorriston explains.

Engineering Social Belonging

When Climate Frays the Social Fabric

What makes this study stand out is its scale: a dataset of 371 monuments analyzed not just archaeologically, but environmentally. Using machine learning and statistical modeling, the team linked monument types to local conditions—vegetation density, slope, proximity to springs, and fog moisture.

The oldest monuments hugged the lowlands and clustered near water. Later triliths scattered across barren uplands. The newer they were, the farther they strayed from predictable resources.

Yet even in these sparse landscapes, the act of monument-building continued. People came, hauled stones, and left behind a social imprint.

"Monuments communicate a culturally specific, shared meaning from builders to contemporaries and facilitate exchange and social relationships," the authors write.

A Broader Lens on Monumentality

Rather than interpreting each structure in isolation—grave, marker, altar—this study proposes a holistic model: monuments as adaptive technologies. Their form and frequency shifted with population density, mobility, and environmental pressure.

In this way, Arabia’s prehistoric pastoralists weren't simply reacting to climate change; they were innovating socially. They developed architectures of memory, cooperation, and identity suited to life in motion.

McCorriston and colleagues argue that their findings could extend beyond Arabia.

"Our model highlights a reliance on monuments to preserve connections and adapt socially in a changing world."

Related Research and Citations

* Costanzo, S., Brandolini, F., Idriss Ahmed, H., Zerboni, A., & Manzo, A. (2021). Creating the funerary landscape of eastern Sudan. PLOS ONE, 16(7), e0253511. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253511

* Dalton, M., et al. (2021). The middle Holocene ‘funerary avenues’ of north-west Arabia. The Holocene, 32(3), 183–199. https://doi.org/10.1177/09596836211060497

* Linares Matás, G. J. (2023). Memory, agency, and labor mobilization in the monumental funerary landscapes of southeastern Mauritania, West Africa. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 70, 101488. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101488

* Harrower, M. J., & McCorriston, J. (2012). Water Histories and Spatial Archaeology: Ancient Yemen and the American West. Geoforum, 43(3), 573–586. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.10.007

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The Plateau as a Portal

The Bogotá Altiplano isn’t just another highland basin—it's a natural bottleneck between two continents. Stretching along the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia, this elevated plain has long stood at the intersection of Mesoamerica, Amazonia, and the Andes. But while archaeologists have scraped this region’s surface for decades, its deeper human story has remained elusive—until now.

A new genomic study published in Science Advances peels back the demographic history of this corridor, revealing the rise and fall of distinct ancestral populations. Through ancient DNA extracted from 21 individuals dating from 6000 to 500 years ago, researchers have reconstructed a rare genetic transect through time—one that tells of lost lineages and sweeping replacement.

A Vanished People of the Plateau

The study’s most surprising finding emerges from the oldest group: seven preceramic foragers who lived on the Altiplano around 6000 years ago, associated with the Checua archaeological site. These individuals carry no detectable ancestry from the better-known Anzick-1 genome (linked to Clovis culture in Montana) or the early populations of California’s Channel Islands.

Instead, their genetic signature represents a deeply divergent branch—one not yet found in any other ancient or modern Indigenous groups across the Americas.

“These individuals do not share specific affinities with any known Central or South American populations,” the authors write. “They derive from a previously undescribed lineage stemming directly from the earliest South American expansions.”

This “ghost population,” once isolated in the Colombian highlands, seems to have vanished entirely from later gene pools. They left no direct descendants among the living. By 2000 years ago, the genomic landscape of the region had changed completely.

A Sudden Replacement, Not a Slow Evolution

The genetic shift was abrupt.

Where once the Altiplano was home to this basal hunter-gatherer lineage, by the Herrera ceramic period (~2000 years ago), that population had been replaced. The newcomers carried ancestry related to ancient groups in Panama and Costa Rica—specifically those associated with the Chibchan language family.

This discovery overturns earlier archaeological assumptions that cultural shifts—such as the arrival of pottery or farming—were the result of local development. Genetically, these transformations look more like migration and replacement.

“Our findings challenge in situ development models and suggest a major population turnover between 6000 and 2000 years ago,” the researchers report.

Notably, the genetic influx precedes maize cultivation, which archaeologists date to around 3800 years ago. Whether the spread of farming helped catalyze this population shift remains an open question.

Chibchan Connections Run Deep

The replacement population, while distinct from the earlier foragers, shows remarkable continuity from the Herrera period into the Muisca period (~1200 to 500 years ago). This genetic stability persisted even through major cultural transformations and into the Spanish conquest.

“Despite dramatic cultural changes, the same population structure remains detectable over 1500 years,” said the team.

The Muisca, a society known for its complex social systems, agriculture, and legendary goldwork, spoke a now-extinct Chibchan language. Genomic data now confirm they were genetically affiliated with Chibchan speakers in modern-day Panama and Costa Rica—people still living today.

“Ancient Muisca genomes show higher affinity to modern Chibchan speakers from the Isthmus than to current Indigenous populations in Colombia,” the authors note.

A Fractured Chibchan Archipelago

The study also highlights the fragmented distribution of Chibchan languages at the time of Spanish arrival—what some scholars describe as a “Chibchan archipelago.” Why this language family became so patchy remains uncertain, but the genomic data suggest a complex web of expansions, replacements, and admixture events across the region.

One possibility is that Chibchan-speaking groups initially spread widely across northern South America, only to be fragmented by later waves of migration. Alternatively, separate Chibchan groups may have moved independently into different regions, each bringing slightly different genetic signatures.

Whatever the case, the data imply that the Isthmian region—particularly modern Panama and Costa Rica—served as a key Chibchan homeland, from which multiple dispersals likely originated.

Beyond Language: A Human Story

While the study is rich in f-statistics and SNP panels, its real value lies in how it rewrites the human story of the Andes. For thousands of years, the Bogotá highlands were a place of demographic transformation, genetic resilience, and cultural reinvention.

One population—the Checua foragers—disappeared so completely that their genes survive only in fragments of ancient bone. Another—the Chibchan speakers—held sway for over a millennium, leaving behind both linguistic echoes and genetic footprints.

As researchers continue to explore ancient genomes from western Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, this picture will gain clarity. For now, the Altiplano has given us a rare genetic time capsule—one that traces not just the roots of Colombian identity, but the broader patterns of human movement across the Americas.

Related Research

Here are key studies related to this research:

* Posth, C. et al. (2018). Reconstructing the deep population history of Central and South America. Cell, 175(5), 1185–1197.e22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.10.027

* Moreno-Mayar, J. V. et al. (2018). Early human dispersals within the Americas. Science, 362(6419), eaav2621. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aav2621

* Capodiferro, A. et al. (2022). Ancient genomes from the Caribbean illuminate the genetic legacy of pre-contact populations. Science, 376(6591), eabg1532. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abg1532

* Scheib, C. L. et al. (2018). Ancient human parallel lineages within North America contributed to a coastal expansion. Science, 360(6392), 1024–1027. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aav2621

* Arias, L. et al. (2021). Genomic context of early Holocene hunter-gatherers in the Americas. Nature, 592, 290–294. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03482-7

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Piecing Together an Ancient Puzzle

Buried in the rocky sediments of South Africa’s Drimolen Main Quarry lies the fossil of a partial pelvis—small, fragile, and easily overlooked. But this ancient bone, designated DNH 43, dates back nearly 2 million years and offers a rare glimpse into the anatomy of our distant relatives.

The pelvis—made up of the sacrum and parts of the hip bone—is one of the most informative parts of the skeleton for understanding locomotion and childbirth in human evolution. Yet, complete or even partially articulated pelvises are rare in the fossil record. What makes DNH 43 especially valuable is not just its age but how its dimensions connect it to both the past and future of hominin form.

"The fossil is best attributed to Paranthropus robustus and displays an overall primitive, gracile morphology," the researchers write, “but presents with positioning of the sacrum similar to that of recent humans.”

This strange mix of the archaic and the modern invites new thinking about how early hominins moved, gave birth, and adapted to their landscapes.

Hips Don’t Lie: The Form and Function of DNH 43

Excavated at the Drimolen site in Gauteng Province, DNH 43 was found in a region that also yielded the earliest Homo erectus fossils known in South Africa. This pelvic fossil likely belonged to Paranthropus robustus, a robust-toothed hominin adapted to chewing hard plant matter. The authors stress that taxonomic attribution remains cautious—early Homo is also found at the site—but they lean toward Paranthropus based on anatomy and context.

Digital reconstruction and 3D modeling revealed that DNH 43 had:

* A small sacrum (lower back base) with features more like Australopithecus than later Homo

* A relatively narrow sacral plate, compressed front to back

* Gracile, lightly built hip bones

* A sacral tilt (pelvic incidence) of 56°, remarkably similar to modern Homo sapiens

"These data suggest spinopelvic mechanics in Australopithecus (and likely Paranthropus if DNH 43 indeed represents the genus) were similar to recent Homo sapiens in how they positioned the torso and head over the hip joint during bipedal posture and locomotion."

That’s a significant departure from previous ideas that early hominin pelvises lacked the curvature necessary for modern upright walking. DNH 43's pelvic tilt points to a more advanced spinal alignment than previously recognized in hominins this old.

Obstetrics in the Deep Past

One of the evolutionary challenges faced by our lineage is the so-called "obstetric dilemma"—balancing efficient bipedalism with the need to give birth to increasingly larger-brained babies. DNH 43 provides important clues.

The pelvis is mediolaterally wide, especially between the hip joints (biacetabular breadth) and at the narrowest point of the birth canal (bispinous breadth). Indexed against the size of the hip socket, these values suggest an exceptionally spacious pelvic outlet, a feature that might reflect a non-rotational birth mechanism, similar to that inferred for Australopithecus.

“The exceptionally wide bispinous and biacetabular breadths of DNH 43 suggest a capacious pelvic outlet that might indicate a non-rotational birth mechanism.”

Yet this does not appear to compromise locomotion. A broader pelvis could help early hominins maintain stride length with shorter legs—possibly by relying more on pelvic rotation rather than long strides. And according to the authors, such an arrangement may not significantly increase energy cost while walking.

Paranthropus or Early Homo?

Here’s the catch: despite the pelvis’s primitive features, it’s not entirely clear whether DNH 43 belonged to Paranthropus robustus or a very early member of Homo. Fossils of early Homo from South Africa are sparse and fragmentary, especially postcranially. Some pelvic traits in DNH 43 align more with Homo, including the pelvic incidence and certain aspects of the sacroiliac articulation. But others are more consistent with Paranthropus or Australopithecus.

The researchers emphasize that early Homo, Paranthropus, and Australopithecus overlapped chronologically and probably retained a great deal of shared ancestral anatomy.

“Basal members of Homo might be difficult to identify based solely on the pelvic traits visible in DNH 43,” they note. “Consequently, taxonomic assignment of postcranial remains such as DNH 43 may be subject to revision.”

The Many Shapes of Being Human

If anything, DNH 43 reinforces the idea that early human evolution wasn’t a straight line. Instead, it was a mosaic—a patchwork of ancient and novel traits, expressed in ways that don’t always conform to tidy categories.

A pelvis that resembles both Paranthropus and Homo, and allows for both efficient walking and a spacious birth canal, speaks to the diversity and flexibility of hominin evolution. These were creatures negotiating life on a landscape that demanded endurance, adaptation, and reproduction—all with the tools nature gave them.

One pelvis at a time, we're learning that being human has always come in many forms.

Related Research

Here are additional studies that deepen context for DNH 43 and early pelvic evolution:

* Anton, S.C. & Middleton, E.R. (2023). Making meaning from fragmentary fossils: Early Homo in the Early to early Middle Pleistocene. Journal of Human Evolution, 179, 103307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2022.103307

* Churchill, S.E., et al. (2018). The pelvis of Australopithecus sediba. PaleoAnthropology, 2018:334–356. https://doi.org/10.4207/PA.2018.ART116

* Simpson, S.W., et al. (2008). A female Homo erectus pelvis from Gona, Ethiopia. Science, 322(5904):1089–1092. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1163592

* VanSickle, C., et al. (2018). Homo naledi pelvic remains from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution, 125, 122–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2017.10.001

* Been, E., et al. (2013). Sacral orientation in hominin evolution. Advances in Anthropology, 3(3):133–141. https://doi.org/10.4236/aa.2013.33018

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For decades, archaeologists parsing skeletal remains across the Maya lowlands have often reached for the language of sacrifice. Skulls and isolated bones found in graves were interpreted as evidence of ritual violence or divine offerings. But what if that narrative is incomplete?

A study led by anthropologist Angelina J. Locker reexamines a modest burial outside the ancient Maya city of Dos Hombres, Belize. Her analysis brings a different lens: one rooted in memory, identity, and placemaking. Through isotopic analysis and a deep dive into Maya cosmology, Locker argues that disarticulated teeth and mandibles buried alongside a young woman were not sacrificial remnants, but ancestral fragments brought from afar to seed a sense of belonging.

Rethinking the Narrative of Sacrifice

The burial in question lies 1.5 kilometers outside the city center, in a commoner household known as the Dancer Group. Dated to the Late Preclassic (300 BCE – 250 CE), it contains the partial remains of a young woman (Individual 14), and two sets of disarticulated teeth from adults who were buried alongside her (Individuals 15 and 16).

Previously, these secondary remains had been cast as sacrificial victims. The prevailing wisdom: their bones, scattered and incomplete, suggested they were killed and interred to honor the primary burial. But no signs of violence were found on the bones. There were no cut marks, no indicators of flaying, no iconography of gods demanding blood.

"The use of sacrifice or interring one's enemies within the household of the everyday citizen seems unlikely," Locker writes.

Instead, she turns to Maya beliefs about the soul.

Teeth and Breath: Maya Ideas of the Self

Among the ancient Maya, identity was divisible. The body was more than bones and flesh—it was an assemblage of vital forces. The baah represented the self and resided in the head. Ik' was the breath-soul, linked to wind and embedded in the mouth and teeth. Ch'ulel dwelled in the blood and heart, while wahy were companion spirits who died when the individual did.

Because ik' was believed to reside in the teeth, the disarticulated remains may have been more than relics. They were portable repositories of ancestral breath.

"Disarticulated remains were used to strengthen the essence of ancestors to help create and legitimize place."

Isotopes and Identity: Tracing the Origins of the Dead

Locker analyzed oxygen and strontium isotope ratios from the teeth of the three individuals. These isotopes, locked in during childhood through water and food intake, reveal geographic origins.

Individual 14, the primary burial, was local. But Individuals 15 and 16 had isotope signatures that placed them outside the Dos Hombres region. They were migrants—or rather, their remains were.

"They most likely represent emergent ancestors of a dividual person from an external place."

These emergent ancestors may have been kin, real or fictive, whose remains were brought to the burial site to legitimize a new settlement, forge ancestral claims, and create continuity.

Memory in the Margins

The burial was marked by jade beads, a step carved in bedrock, and a U-shaped stone alignment—all elements often associated with grave markers or ancestor shrines. A deposit of freshwater mussel shells suggests a feasting event, reinforcing that this was a moment of community ritual.

This was not a grave of the forgotten. It was a grave meant to be remembered.

Later, during the Late Classic period, the area appears to have been reoccupied. Another burial, Episode 1, was inserted near the original one. One of the vessels from Episode 2 had been removed and reused. This act, Locker suggests, was more than reuse. It was a reengagement with memory. A reclaiming of lineage through material and spatial continuity.

Bones as Heirlooms

For the Maya, heirlooms were not just jade beads or ceramic vessels. Human remains could serve the same purpose.

Locker argues that the remains of Individuals 15 and 16 were not simply deposited. They were curated, brought from afar, and interred with intention.

"Bones of the dead can function as seeds for making place."

These dividual bodies carried memory, lineage, and power. Through them, the living constructed a genealogy of place.

This burial challenges assumptions baked into Mesoamerican archaeology. Not all partial burials speak to violence. Some speak to belonging.

Locker’s work encourages anthropologists and archaeologists to read bones not as evidence of what was done to people, but what was done with them.

When teeth are treated as sacred, when grave goods are sparse but symbolically dense, and when isotopes speak of distance, the story changes. A young woman buried at the edge of an ancient Maya city may have become the anchor of a new lineage—surrounded by ancestral breath, resting on bedrock, her grave remembered in stone.

Related Research

* Geller, P. L. (2012). The bioarchaeology of socio-political change: A view from the ancient Maya. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2072-2

* McAnany, P. A. (2013). Living with the Ancestors: Kinship and Kingship in Ancient Maya Society. Cambridge University Press.

* Duncan, W. N., & Schwarz, K. A. (2014). Bodies and sacred matter: A bioarchaeological approach to religion in the past. University Press of Florida. https://doi.org/10.5744/florida/9780813049568.001.0001

* Goudiaby, A., & Nondédéo, P. (2020). Death and identity: Reassessing the role of funerary practices in the construction of Classic Maya social organization. Ancient Mesoamerica, 31(1), 61–75. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536119000321

* Tiesler, V., & Cucina, A. (2007). Procedures in Human Heart Extraction and Ritual Meaning: A Taphonomic Assessment of Anthropogenic Marks in Classic Maya Skeletons. Latin American Antiquity, 18(4), 476–492. https://doi.org/10.2307/25478109

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Along the Paleolithic shores of the Bay of Biscay, long before harpoons sliced the waves and whaling ships chased shadows across the ocean, humans were already forging relationships with whales. Not through the hunt, but through the aftermath: the beaching of leviathans. New research has shown that, around 20,000 years ago, humans in what is now northern Spain and southwestern France collected bones from stranded whales and shaped them into weapons.

A collaboration of scientists from institutions across Europe—including the CNRS, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and the University of British Columbia—analyzed more than 170 whale bone objects recovered from archaeological sites around the Bay of Biscay. These implements, many of them spear points and shafts, mark the oldest known use of whale bones as tools in the archaeological record.

“Our study reveals that the bones came from at least five species of large whales, the oldest of which date to approximately 19,000–20,000 years ago,” said Jean-Marc Pétillon, senior author and archaeologist at the CNRS.

The research, published in Nature Communications, relied on a suite of advanced techniques. Radiocarbon dating confirmed the Late Upper Paleolithic age of the objects, while mass spectrometry-based Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) was used to extract species-specific protein signatures. These techniques allowed the team to match tool fragments to whales still swimming in the region today: sperm whales, fin whales, and blue whales. The dataset also included gray whales, now absent from the North Atlantic but common in the Pacific.

“ZooMS is a powerful technique for investigating past sea mammal diversity, particularly when diagnostic morphometric elements are missing,” said Krista McGrath, lead author of the study.

Beached, Broken, and Transformed

The bones were not retrieved from hunts but rather from the carcasses of whales that had washed ashore—a gift, however grim, from the sea. At one cave site near the coast, bones were found intentionally broken, likely to access stored fatty oil, a critical dietary supplement during glacial conditions.

Stranding events may have been rare, but they provided an outsized opportunity. The researchers argue that even small bands of foragers could have mobilized quickly to exploit the bounty of a beached whale. In addition to food and oil, the dense bones offered a source of raw material hard to find elsewhere in the rugged glacial landscapes of Upper Paleolithic Europe.

The study cataloged 83 whale bone tools from 26 sites and another 90 fragments from the Santa Catalina Cave. While tools dated as far back as 20,000 years, the majority fell within the 17,500 to 16,000-year range. This temporal clustering may reflect a burst of innovation or intensification in the use of coastal resources.

“Late Paleolithic humans regularly frequented the seashore and used its resources,” Pétillon noted. The data imply not only scavenging but also an embedded knowledge of whale behavior, tides, and the coastal environment.

Whales as Neighbors

The study offers more than a window into the human toolkit. It also reveals something about the whales themselves. Stable isotope data extracted from the bone collagen point to subtle but significant differences between the foraging patterns of ancient whales and their modern descendants. Shifts in temperature, ocean productivity, or migratory routes may explain these differences, offering a rare look at marine ecological change through deep time.

Today, most of the whale species identified in the study are endangered. But their ancient remains reflect a time when these animals were part of human landscapes and lifeways in ways now mostly forgotten. The work thus touches not only on archaeology but on conservation and marine biology, linking past and present through bone and protein.

Further Reading and Related Research

* Reitz, E. J., & Wing, E. S. (2008). Zooarchaeology. Cambridge University Press.

* Monks, G. G. (2005). The exploitation and utilization of marine mammals in the Arctic: A zooarchaeological perspective. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 15(3), 235–246. https://doi.org/10.1002/oa.778

* Moss, M. L. (2011). Northwest Coast Archaeology as Deep History: Modeling Continuity and Change through the Lens of Marine Ecology. Journal of Social Archaeology, 11(2), 138–165. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605311403865

* Bjerck, H. B. (2009). Colonizing seascapes: Comparative perspectives on the development of maritime relations in Scandinavia and the Americas. Arctic Anthropology, 46(1-2), 118–131. https://doi.org/10.1353/arc.0.0022

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The Face in the Rock Shelter

In the shadowy rock shelters of the Eresma River valley in central Spain, a curious stone was discovered in 2022—one that would go on to challenge deeply ingrained assumptions about the cognitive lives of Neanderthals.

The object, a quartz-rich pebble about the size of a melon, bore three naturally formed indentations. But what set it apart was a vivid red dot of ochre placed with startling precision on its surface. Nestled between these cup-like depressions—where the "nose" might lie if this stone were, say, a face—the pigment was later revealed to contain something extraordinary: the oldest known human fingerprint in Europe, and likely the earliest associated with the deliberate use of pigment.

At over 43,000 years old, this wasn't just pigment on stone. It may have been a gesture of recognition, a marking of meaning, or something altogether more mysterious.

“The fact that the pebble was selected because of its appearance and then marked with ochre shows that there was a human mind capable of symbolising, imagining, idealising and projecting thoughts on an object,” the research team writes.

Hominin Hallmarks: Symbolism in Stone

This pebble wasn’t shaped into a tool. It bore no wear marks typical of hammerstones or grinding implements. Instead, its form seemed to have attracted attention for a subtler reason: its resemblance to a human face.

The three depressions—two smaller ones and a larger irregular one—suggested eyes and a mouth. Positioned centrally between them, the red ochre fingerprint added what could be interpreted as a nose. Statistical analysis revealed that this red dot was placed in a location unlikely to be the result of chance. The researchers calculated a mere 0.31% probability that such a placement happened accidentally.

While face-like shapes in natural objects—what psychologists call pareidolia—are common, the deliberate application of pigment to enhance or complete such a perceived image marks a significant leap.

“Could the morphology of the piece, with the presence of three cupules on the same surface and the positioning of the red dot in relation to them, represent a composition explained by the phenomenon of pareidolia?” the researchers ask.

If so, this is one of the oldest known examples of a Neanderthal engaging with that pattern-recognition impulse that modern humans also exhibit: seeing faces in clouds, tree bark, or rocks—and then responding with symbolic action.

The Science of a Smudge

To investigate the mark’s origin, the team employed multispectral imaging, X-ray fluorescence, 3D scanning, and scanning electron microscopy. The pigment was identified as ochre—a mix of iron oxides and clay minerals—distinct from the surrounding cave sediments and imported from elsewhere. More importantly, the print bore dermatoglyphic characteristics that allowed forensic specialists to determine it was human, likely from an adult male.

This wasn’t the only pigment-marked object known from Neanderthal sites, but its clarity, context, and fingerprint make it unique.

The researchers ruled out incidental contact—such as a ochre-stained hand brushing the pebble while using it—since the stone showed no wear or utilitarian features. Moreover, no other ochre traces were found in the cave’s archaeological layer, suggesting this was not a byproduct of some larger activity like ochre processing.

“The red dot is not placed randomly and appears to clearly reflect a deliberate action,” the authors write. “If there is action and planning involved, it cannot be ruled out that this might constitute a visual sign.”

Neanderthal Minds at Work

The pebble emerged from a Mousterian context (Level H) associated exclusively with Homo neanderthalensis—predating any evidence of Homo sapiens in the region. Its age and context are securely dated via radiocarbon analysis of nearby horse teeth to between 43,500 and 42,100 years ago.

This temporal window, shortly before Neanderthals vanished from the Iberian Peninsula, represents some of their final known moments of material expression. And yet, far from brutish toolmakers, they appear here as deliberate actors capable of symbolic abstraction.

The researchers propose that the pebble fits within a broader repertoire of Neanderthal symbolic behavior: engraved bones and pebbles, pigment use, eagle talon adornments, and non-figurative cave marks. The presence of a human fingerprint fused with pigment adds yet another layer—both literally and figuratively—to this expanding picture.

Art or Pareidolia?

Interpreting ancient symbols is notoriously fraught. Is this art? Religion? A doodle? Or simply a curious moment of aesthetic recognition?

Neuroscience tells us that face recognition is deeply embedded in the primate brain. Pareidolia isn’t random—it’s adaptive. In that light, the act of selecting this particular pebble, seeing in it a potential face, and pressing a pigment-laced fingertip to it becomes more than idle play. It becomes an artifact of perception.

And if that interpretation holds, then it may be that Neanderthals, too, looked at a world full of shapes and saw something more.

“If we had a pebble with a red dot on it that was done 5,000 years ago by Homo sapiens,” said lead researcher David Álvarez-Alonso, “no one would hesitate to call it portable art.”

Related Research

Here are additional studies offering context and comparative insight into Neanderthal symbolic behavior and cognition:

* Zilhão, J. et al. (2010). Symbolic use of marine shells and mineral pigments by Iberian Neandertals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(3), 1023–1028. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0914088107

* Hoffmann, D. L. et al. (2018). U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art. Science, 359(6378), 912–915. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap7778

* García-Diez, M. & Ochoa, B. (2020). Marks on rocks: Engraved pebbles from the Mousterian site of Axlor (Northern Iberia). Journal of Archaeological Science, 122, 105198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2020.105198

* Majkić, A. et al. (2018). Symbolic behaviour of Neanderthals: Overview of the archaeological evidence. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 28(3), 411–437. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774318000271

* Rodríguez-Vidal, J. et al. (2014). A rock engraving made by Neanderthals in Gibraltar. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(37), 13301–13306. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1411529111

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At first glance, the ceramic burners dug from Iron Age homes in northwest Arabia might seem mundane—cracked bowls of fired clay, their soot-blackened interiors whispering of fire long extinguished. But inside their walls lay something far more enduring than ash: the faint, molecular traces of Peganum harmala, or Syrian rue, a psychoactive and medicinal plant still used across the region today.

New research from a collaborative team of archaeologists and chemists has uncovered the earliest material evidence of this plant's use in Arabian fumigation rituals. Through meticulous chemical analysis, scientists were able to isolate alkaloid residues in household incense burners from the ancient oasis settlement of Qurayyah, dating to the first half of the first millennium BCE. What emerged was a picture not just of ancient drug use, but of a deeply embedded domestic tradition—one that blurred the boundaries between health, ritual, and scent.

A Scented Signal from the Past

The story begins in the northern Hijaz, at the site of Qurayyah—a bustling Iron Age oasis community surrounded by arid highlands. Here, archaeologists uncovered several ceramic censers from residential compounds. These weren’t grave goods or temple offerings; they were found in kitchens and cellars, hinting at a more intimate use.

From these vessels, researchers extracted organic residues using high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS), a tool capable of detecting even minute quantities of complex molecules. Among the molecular ghosts were harmine and harmane, beta-carboline alkaloids known to occur in Peganum harmala.

“This discovery represents not only the first evidence for its use in Iron Age Arabia, but also the most ancient, radiometrically dated material evidence of Peganum harmala being used for fumigation globally,” the authors write.

Unlike other psychoactive plant finds that often appear in ceremonial or burial contexts, this one is different. The harmala residue was located inside burners used in everyday domestic settings, suggesting that the plant was being used not for elite ritual, but likely for routine household purposes.

Smoke for Health, Not Hallucinations

Today, Peganum harmala is still used in traditional Arabian medicine. Its seeds are burned to ward off illness, ease headaches, treat arthritis, and even repel insects. In the Qurayyah samples, the alkaloid traces were found alongside plant sterols and triterpenoids, chemical signatures pointing to seed oils and resins.

The researchers suggest that the most likely use of the plant was medicinal or sanitary. In small doses, harmala alkaloids act as mild sedatives, antidepressants, and anti-inflammatories. Their antibacterial properties may have made them especially valuable in arid, crowded settlements like Qurayyah.

"The use of Peganum harmala at the oasis was most likely for domestic purposes connected to the household rather than for public ceremonies or funerary rituals," the authors note.

It is true that in high doses, these compounds can cause hallucinations—and indeed, Peganum harmala has been used for centuries in shamanic or religious contexts across the Middle East and Central Asia. But there is no indication the Qurayyah residents were seeking transcendence through smoke. If anything, the plant's bitter odor and astringent effects likely made it a better tool for purification than for ecstasy.

Tracing a Pharmacological Heritage

Part of what makes this discovery significant is not only its antiquity, but its continuity. Syrian rue is still burned in Saudi homes to this day. In some traditions, it is lit to ward off the evil eye; in others, its smoke purifies the air during illness. What the Qurayyah censers show is that this lineage of knowledge stretches back nearly three millennia.

“This discovery shows the deep historical roots of traditional healing and fumigation practices in Arabia,” said Ahmed Abualhassan of the Saudi Heritage Commission, co-author of the study.

In contrast to many parts of the ancient world, where medicinal knowledge was recorded in texts, much of Arabia’s healing tradition has been passed down orally. That makes chemical residue analysis all the more powerful, offering a rare, tangible record of plant-based practice.

Practical Wisdom in Clay

Perhaps the most compelling part of this story is its sheer pragmatism. While it’s tempting to think of drug use in the ancient world as mystical or elite, the Qurayyah data suggests otherwise. Here were everyday people managing pain, fending off infection, and scenting their homes with the best tools they had: local plants, fire, and memory.

This wasn’t a hallucinogenic rite of passage or a burial rite; it was Tuesday.

The authors argue that fumigation with Peganum harmala likely served several roles at once: therapeutic, hygienic, perhaps even emotional. Burning the seeds released smoke that might soothe sore joints, disinfect a crowded room, or simply offer reassurance through a familiar smell.

There is also the possibility, however speculative, that the act itself was ritualistic in the most ordinary sense—a daily rhythm of care and belief passed on in gestures rather than words.

The Past Smolders On

As scholars continue to trace the uses of medicinal and psychoactive plants across time, finds like this one add nuance to our understanding. The history of drug use isn’t just a history of ecstatic visions and sacred texts. It is also the history of headaches soothed, children protected, homes cleansed, and bodies laid to rest with dignity.

The scent of Peganum harmala may not be universally pleasant. But in Qurayyah, it lingered long enough to tell a story that had, until now, only lived in memory.

Related Research

* Guerra-Doce, E. (2015). Psychoactive substances in prehistoric times: examining the archaeological evidence. Time and Mind, 8(1), 91–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/1751696X.2014.993244

* Robinson, D. W., et al. (2020). Datura quids at Pinwheel Cave, California, provide unambiguous confirmation of the ingestion of hallucinogens at a rock art site. PNAS, 117(49), 31026–31037. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2014529117

* Tanasi, D., et al. (2024). Multianalytical investigation reveals psychotropic substances in a Ptolemaic Egyptian vase. Scientific Reports, 14, 27891. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-27891-9

* Ren, M., et al. (2019). The origins of cannabis smoking: chemical residue evidence from the first millennium BCE in the Pamirs. Science Advances, 5(7), eaaw1391. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw1391

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In 2008, in the remote reaches of Siberia, archaeologists retrieved a sliver of bone from Denisova Cave—a pinky finger no larger than a child's marble. No one could have predicted that this modest fragment would launch a redefinition of the human family tree.

It wasn't the shape of the finger that caught scientists off guard. It was the DNA.

Sequencing revealed that the fossil did not belong to Homo sapiens or to Neanderthals, the two best-known human relatives in Eurasia. Instead, it represented an unknown population—one whose lineage had quietly branched off and persisted for hundreds of thousands of years. Researchers named them the Denisovans, after the cave.

"Denisovans were created from DNA work," said paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London.

In the years since, fossils, tools, and proteins have surfaced across Asia, suggesting Denisovans were not a localized oddity but a diverse population that once ranged from the Tibetan Plateau to the tropics of Southeast Asia. Today, traces of their DNA still linger in many people from Oceania and Southeast Asia, including populations in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.

Fossils with No Names

The discovery of the Denisovans flipped the traditional model of paleoanthropology on its head. Until then, new hominin species were named based on bones. Here, bones came second to molecules.

In 2010, researchers extracted the entire nuclear genome from the Denisova finger. The data revealed not only that Denisovans were a sister group to Neanderthals, but that their DNA survived in modern humans. The implications were vast: the Denisovans had been widespread, and they had interbred with Homo sapiens.

But their fossils were elusive. In 2019, a jawbone found decades earlier by a Buddhist monk on the Tibetan Plateau was identified as Denisovan through protein analysis. It was at least 160,000 years old. Two years later, Denisovan DNA was detected in sediments from the same cave, confirming they had lived at high altitudes for tens of thousands of years. Genetic data also suggested that Tibetans today carry a Denisovan gene that helps with oxygen regulation at high elevations.

"Asia is a hotspot of human evolution," said archaeological scientist Katerina Douka.

Another jawbone, this time dredged from the seafloor near Taiwan, showed dental traits similar to known Denisovan fossils. The list grew longer with a molar from Laos and skull fragments from northern China. Each offered hints, but none provided a full picture.

A Debate in the Bones

What to call these people has become a heated matter. In 2021, Chinese researchers proposed the name Homo longi (“Dragon Man”) for a skull recovered in Harbin, China. While some features aligned with Denisovan traits, others were unique. Critics argued it was premature to link the skull directly to the DNA from Denisova Cave.

More recently, paleoanthropologists Christopher Bae and Xiujie Wu suggested a new name: Homo juluensis, grouping together fossils from Xujiayao, Baishiya Karst Cave, and Penghu. Others are hesitant to name anything at all without more genetic confirmation.

"We don’t know where the common ancestor lived, and we don’t know what it looked like," noted Stringer.

This uncertainty speaks to a deeper problem in paleoanthropology: the uneasy marriage between genetic data and morphological traits. Some fossils have beautiful DNA, but little left to study in terms of form. Others have intact crania but no surviving biomolecules. Until both can be matched more systematically, any attempt to assign species names remains speculative.

A New Model of Human Origins?

The discovery of the Denisovans has not only introduced a new branch of the human family, but challenged assumptions about our own beginnings.

Traditionally, Homo sapiens was thought to have evolved exclusively in Africa and migrated outward. But the Denisovan record suggests Eurasia played a more active role in our evolution than previously acknowledged. Some researchers now entertain the idea that the ancestor of modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans could have lived in western Asia or even Europe—and that Homo sapiens may have emerged from a network of populations, not a single cradle.

Denisovans also remind researchers just how much interbreeding shaped us. In 2018, a fragment from Denisova Cave was found to come from a girl with a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. Hybrids, it seems, were not rare flukes but regular outcomes of contact.

"The Denisovans were an early warning of the possibility of massive population mixing in our evolutionary history," said Douka.

And all of this—from the hybrid girl to the population models to the possible rethinking of human origins—started with a tiny fragment of a pinky bone.

Further Reading and Related Research

* Chen, F. et al. (2019). A late Middle Pleistocene Denisovan mandible from the Tibetan Plateau. Nature, 569(7756), 409–412. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1139-x

* Slon, V. et al. (2018). The genome of the offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. Nature, 561(7721), 113–116. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0455-x

* Demeter, F. et al. (2022). A Late Middle Pleistocene Denisovan molar from the Annamite Chain of northern Laos. Nature Communications, 13, 2557. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30020-w

* Stringer, C. et al. (2025). Morphological clustering of Eurasian Pleistocene Homo fossils. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.16.594603

* Bae, C. J., & Wu, X. (2024). Homo juluensis: A new species designation for Denisovan fossils. Nature Communications, 15, 9479. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-39479-1

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In a quiet storeroom of the University of Turin's Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, an unnamed woman sits still. Her skin, darkened by centuries of dehydration and burial, carries faint, deliberate lines. These marks, etched some 800 years ago into the flesh of her face and wrist, whisper stories of a vanished world—and of a tattooing tradition that archaeologists are only just beginning to decipher.

The woman is part of no documented excavation. Donated anonymously in the early 20th century, she arrived with no known provenance other than a vague label: "South American." But thanks to a careful blend of non-destructive imaging, microchemical analysis, and cultural context, this anonymous ancestor is now at the center of an extraordinary finding.

"The three detected lines of tattooing are relatively unique: in general, skin marks on the face are rare among the groups of the ancient Andean region and even rarer on the cheeks."

A Face in the Desert Wind

Radiocarbon dating of textile fibers still clinging to the body place her lifetime between 1215 and 1382 CE. Her posture—seated, knees bent—and the remaining shreds of fabric suggest a traditional Andean funerary bundle, or fardo, common among Paracas and other southern coastal Peruvian cultures.

Beneath the museum lights, the tattoos are nearly invisible. Time has tanned her skin into a sepia canvas. But with infrared reflectography and false-color imaging, researchers revealed a set of three dark lines running across her right cheek, a partial mirrored pattern on her left, and a solitary, S-shaped curve etched into her right wrist.

Facial tattoos, particularly on the cheeks, are almost never preserved or documented in South American mummies. "It has to be highlighted that, as far as cultural classification on the basis of skin markings is concerned, the findings from the Turin mummy are unique," the authors write.

These minimalist motifs contrast with the elaborate avian or geometric designs typically found on hands, forearms, or legs in other Andean mummies. No known parallels have been found in skin, pottery, or textiles—though some resemblance to decorative S-patterns in coastal Peruvian cloth remains speculative.

What Lies Beneath the Ink

The ink itself tells an equally curious story.

While most ancient tattoos are assumed to have been drawn using carbon-based pigments like soot or charcoal, this mummy breaks that mold. Chemical and microscopic analysis revealed something else entirely: a blend of magnetite and iron-rich silicate minerals, possibly augite. These compounds are not only rare in tattooing contexts but suggest a level of intentionality and access to specific geological materials.

"The results highlight the presence of magnetite, a commonly used material both in present and past cultures, as well as other iron-rich phases of the pyroxene silicates group... with a small amount of carbon-based materials, possibly not intentionally added."

The mineral composition points to a pigment mixture that absorbed infrared light, hence its detectability through imaging—but differed fundamentally from soot. Magnetite is magnetic and metallic, commonly used in ritual contexts. Its pairing with pyroxene silicates, also found in the highland and coastal regions of Peru, raises intriguing questions about the symbolic meaning and sourcing of tattooing materials.

An Inked Enigma

Without a burial context or known cultural affiliation, the mummy's story remains fragmentary. Yet her tattoos offer a powerful glimpse into the diversity of body modification practices across the ancient Andes.

Face markings may have held communicative or symbolic value, visible to others during life—perhaps reflecting status, kinship, ritual roles, or protective magic. The wrist tattoo, meanwhile, aligns with broader Andean traditions. But unlike the birds, felines, or serpents seen on other bodies, her symbols are abstract and restrained.

Chemical analysis also challenges the assumption that ancient ink was homogeneously plant-based or simple. This find suggests regional variability in pigment recipes and possibly in tattooing tools or techniques. If magnetite was used deliberately, its rarity in other mummy analyses may reflect gaps in research rather than actual absence.

The Value of Forgotten Bodies

Museum specimens lacking excavation records often fall into the shadows of archaeological inquiry. But this study shows how thoughtful science and context-aware interpretation can breathe meaning into unprovenienced remains. Through light and mineral, through pigment and pattern, one silent woman speaks again.

"This multidisciplinary work broadens the vision of ancient tattoo practice and highlights the importance of performing compositional analyses on tattoo pigments."

Related Research

* Pabst, M.A., et al. (2010). Different staining substances were used in decorative and therapeutic tattoos in a 1000-year-old Peruvian mummy. Journal of Archaeological Science, 37(8), 3256–3262. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.07.026

* Vásquez Sánchez, V.F., et al. (2013). Estudio Microquímico Mediante MEB–EDS del pigmento utilizado en el tatuaje de la Señora de Cao. Archaeobios, 7(1), 5–21. Link

* Maita Agurto, P.K., & Minaya Cabello, E. (2013). El uso de reflectografía infrarroja en el registro de tatuajes en momias Paracas-Necrópolis. Arqueología y Sociedad, 26, 117–130. https://doi.org/10.15381/arqueolsoc.2013n26.e12391

* Friedman, R., et al. (2018). Natural mummies from predynastic Egypt reveal the world's earliest figural tattoos. Journal of Archaeological Science, 92, 116–125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2018.02.002

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