Ron Pinhasi

From an anthropological perspective, the passage from the Gravettian to the Solutrean is one of the most interesting transition peri-ods in Old World Prehistory. Between 22 kyr BP and 21 kyr BP, during the beginning stages of the Last Glacial Maximum, Iberia and Southwest ...

A child from a Roman necropolis in Pécs, Hungary (4th century CE) was initially diagnosed with severe spinal osteomyelitis. The post-cranial skeleton displayed bone alterations in the lower thoracic and upper lumbar segments, including vertebral body destruction, collapse and sharp kyphosis, and additional multiple rib lesions, suggesting a most likely diagnosis of pulmonary and spinal tuberculosis. This study discusses a number of selected diagnoses in the context of our pathological findings, complementing the macroscopic examination with radiological and biomolecular analyses.

An infant skeleton was recovered from the 6G8 cemetery (Christian Period, 500-1400 C.E.) during excavation in what is present-day Wadi Halfa, located near the Second Cataract of the Nile in the Republic of the Sudan. Skeletal material from Wadi Halfa represents one of the most analyzed archaeological populations in the world. Building upon the research of Dr. George Armelagos and others, this study presents preliminary results of the first ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis of an individual from this population. Analysis was carried out at the Molecular Population Genetics laboratory in the Smurfit Institute of Genetics at Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland. Using next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques, DNA was extracted from a portion of cranial bone, indexed libraries were prepared, and the genome was sequenced on the Illumina platform using a MiSeq Personal Sequencer. Analysis of sequencing results indicated 0.59% endogenous DNA. Principle component analysis (PCA) was performed; despite a low number of SNPs, the individual was placed between African and European clusters. Using a method developed in Trinity’s Molecular Population Genetics laboratory, the individual was sexed as a male. Haplogroup was assessed by analyzing SNPs from the mitochondrial chromosome with HaploGrep. The individual was assigned to L5a1a, a branch of the ancient L5 haplogroup with origins in East Africa. This study demonstrates the potential to gain unique insight into Nubian populations through aDNA analysis. Additional aDNA analysis of the Nubians will provide invaluable information regarding genetic influence and gene flow in individuals occupying ancient Nubia.

The timing of Neanderthal disappearance and the extent to which they overlapped with the earliest incoming anatomically modern humans (AMHs) in Eurasia are key questions in palaeoanthropology. Determining the spatiotemporal relationship between the two populations is crucial if we are to understand the processes, timing and reasons leading to the disappearance of Neanderthals and the likelihood of cultural and genetic exchange. Serious technical challenges, however, have hindered reliable dating of the period, as the radiocarbon method reaches its limit at ∼50,000 years ago. Here we apply improved accelerator mass spectrometry (14)C techniques to construct robust chronologies from 40 key Mousterian and Neanderthal archaeological sites, ranging from Russia to Spain. Bayesian age modelling was used to generate probability distribution functions to determine the latest appearance date. We show that the Mousterian ended by 41,030-39,260 calibrated years bp (at 95.4% probability) across Europe. We also demonstrate that succeeding…

The Great Hungarian Plain was a crossroads of cultural transformations that have shaped European prehistory. Here we analyse a 5,000-year transect of human genomes, sampled from petrous bones giving consistently excellent endogenous DNA yields, from 13 Hungarian Neolithic, Copper, Bronze and Iron Age burials including two to high (~22 × ) and seven to ~1 × coverage, to investigate the impact of these on Europe's genetic landscape. These data suggest genomic shifts with the advent of the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages, with interleaved periods of genome stability. The earliest Neolithic context genome shows a European hunter-gatherer genetic signature and a restricted ancestral population size, suggesting direct contact between cultures after the arrival of the first farmers into Europe. The latest, Iron Age, sample reveals an eastern genomic influence concordant with introduced Steppe burial rites. We observe transition towards lighter pigmentation and surprisingly, no Neolithi...

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The transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural lifestyle marks a global turning point in human prehistory. We now know that this transition not only varied in its timing and magnitude across regions but also in its demographic, social, economic and symbolic characteristics. It is ...

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LEPROSY HAS CLASSICALLY BEEN CONSIDERED a disease of evolutionarily recent times, with an epidemiology related to relatively high-density living. In their Report “On the origin of leprosy” (13 May 2005, p. 1040), M. Monot et al. propose a scenario in which leprosy was spread around the world during the dispersal of modern humans from Africa and by recent colonial movements. We welcome this innovative model but suggest that their data are equally compatible with a more recent origin and dispersal. The basis of their Pleistocene ...

5. Summary Several archaeologists and geneticists have proposed a theoretical stance which contends that the Neolithic transition in Europe did not involve large movements of people and population replacement, but simply the spread of knowledge and technology. This theoretical approach presumes extensive biological and archaeological continuity between Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers in Europe. Archaeologists who support this model emphasize the economic, technological, and cultural complexity of the ...

Debates surrounding the nature of the Neolithic demographic transition in Europe have historically centred on two opposing models; a'demic'diffusion model whereby incoming farmers from the Near East and Anatolia effectively replaced or completely assimilated indigenous Mesolithic foraging communities and an'indigenist'model resting on the assumption that ideas relating to agriculture and animal domestication diffused from the Near East, but with little or no gene flow. The extreme versions of these dichotomous ...

Both lateral and medial epicondylitis are well known in modern medicine as diseases of occupation, leaving recognizable lesions on the epicondyles. We report on 36 individuals from the 8th-10th century AD Byzantine period from Kovuklukaya, near Sinop, Middle Black Sea region, Northern Anatolia, Turkey. The present study focuses on medial and lateral epicondylitis with lesions of enthesopathies and bony pits, assessing the frequency of these lesions in the skeletal series and whether these characters provide new and/or additional ...

This paper presents the results of stable isotope (carbon and nitrogen) analysis of human and faunal remains from the site of Aktopraklık, one of the earliest farming sites in the Eastern Marmara region of Northwest Anatolia. Excavations at this site have shown that occupation occurs from the middle of the 7 th millennium BC through to the middle of the 6 th millennium BC. The earliest Neolithic activity at this location occurs at the settlement site of Aktopraklık C. Since 2004 a number of Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic burials have been ...

Background It was with this background that we began work on a series of caves in the Hovk region of northern Armenia (Figure 1). Hovk is a high elevation forested karstic region at the flanks of the Lesser Caucasus Mountain range in north-east Armenia (Figure 2). The team carried out the first ever archaeological survey of the area in March 2005. During this work one of the Armenian team members discovered dense surface concentrations of Mousterian tools at a high elevation (approx. 1800m) plateau above the village of Hovk. A subsequent ...

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