ITHACA, N.Y. – New research from Cornell University raises questions about the timing and nature of early interactions between indigenous people and Europeans in North America.

Until now, it’s been assumed that the presence of European trade goods, such as metals and glass beads, provide a timeline for the indigenous peoples and settlements in the 15th and 16th centuries. New research suggests this may be a mistake in cases where there was not direct and intensive exchange between the two groups of people.

Radiocarbon dating and tree-ring evidence shows that three major indigenous sites in Ontario, Canada, conventionally dated 1450-1550 – because there were no or very few European goods recovered – are in fact 50-100 years more recent. This dates the sites to the worst period of the Little Ice Age, around 1600.

“This seems extraordinary: Given this was only 400 years ago, how can we have been wrong by as much as 25 percent?” said first author Sturt Manning, professor of classical archaeology.

Manning is lead author of “Radiocarbon Re-dating of Contact-era Iroquoian History in Northeastern North America,” published in Science Advances. Other Cornell authors include Cornell Tree-Ring Laboratory senior researcher Carol Griggs and doctoral student Samantha Sanft.

Previously, dates in the early contact period were based on the absence – and then presence – of types of glass beads and other European trade goods in excavated sites, along with shifts in material culture, such as changes in ceramic designs. Dates were assigned according to “time transgression,” the assumption that when European goods are found in one place with a confirmed date associated with them, that same date can be used for other places where those trade goods are found.

“But goods don’t get distributed evenly within societies or across distances,” said Manning. “This is a vast area with complex local societies and economies, so the concept that everybody gets the same thing necessarily all at once is a bit ludicrous in retrospect.”

The team’s chronological findings dramatically rewrite how history has been understood in the region. The period of first European contact, rather than following major changes in Iroquoian society, can now be seen to coincide with those changes. This suggests that contact-era transformations happened much later than previously thought.

“Of course, we’ve dated only one site sequence, and there are many more,” Manning said. “What this paper really shows is we now need to reassess all those site sequences where there’s not a clear historical link or association.”

###

The research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

For more information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

Cornell University has dedicated television and audio studios available for media interviews supporting full HD, ISDN and web-based platforms.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

In a 5,000 year old grave outside Falköping, scientists have found the oldest traces of the plague bacterium’s DNA in the world. An international research team including archaeologists from the University of Gothenburg made the discovery using advanced DNA techniques. According to the researchers, this discovery may also have identified the first pandemic in history which stretched from Europe across to Asia as a result of the new trade routes in this period.

The remarkable finds were made at Frälsegården in Gökhem outside Falköping in a passage grave – a kind of collective grave with a large stone burial chamber. Traces of the DNA of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes the plague, were found in the skeletons of Middle Neolithic farmers who have lived at the site approximately 4,900 years ago. The bacterium, which started the Black Death for example, is the deadliest in human history and has cost millions of people their lives.

The discovery was made by a multidisciplinary research team from France, Denmark and Sweden that includes archaeologists Kristian Kristiansen and Karl-Göran Sjögren from the University of Gothenburg.

“The discovery of such an early variant of the bacterium in Falköping was totally unexpected since previous findings pointed to Yersinia pestis as having originated in Asia. This now needs to be re-evaluated, so it certainly is a significant discovery,” says Karl-Göran Sjögren.

The find in Falköping also means that the researchers may have solved another mystery. It was only recently discovered that people in different regions of Eurasia were all infected with the plague during the Bronze Age. But where and when the disease first appeared and how it spread has been unknown – until now. The variant of the bacterium discovered in Falköping seems to have given rise to all subsequent variants and is believed to have spread rapidly since the bacterium has been discovered in finds dating from just a few hundred years later across a huge area from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.

“We think now that the first plague may have occurred in the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture north of the Black Sea a few hundred years before the find in Falköping and then spread to both the west and the east, changing along the way. Its spread may have been facilitated by better communications such as ox-wagons, which were then starting to be used,” says Karl-Göran Sjögren.

It was by analysing ‘molecular clock’ data that the researchers discovered that different strains of the plague bacterium spread very rapidly in Eurasia between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago. This matches exactly a period in South-East Europe when the first large population densities arose but also collapsed. It was also at this time that many technological breakthroughs occurred such as the wheel, the use of draught animals, and metallurgy – breakthroughs that facilitated long-distance trade, for example.

“This very rapid spread is indicative of well-developed communications and contacts that linked groups across very large areas,” says Karl-Göran Sjögren.

Based on this evidence, the researchers therefore believe that it really was a pandemic of the plague that occurred in those large population densities which subsequently had major consequences for future civilisations and migration patterns.

Explore further: An ancient strain of plague may have led to the decline of Neolithic Europeans

Provided by: Göteborgs universitet

Let’s stand up for equality, justice and human dignity
Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December – the day the United Nations General Assembly adopted, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . This year, Human Rights Day marks the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a milestone document that proclaimed the inalienable rights which everyone is inherently entitled to as a human being — regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. It is the most translated document in the world, available in more than 500 languages .
Drafted by representatives of diverse legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of
the world, the Declaration sets out universal values and a common standard of
achievement for all peoples and all nations. It establishes the equal dignity and worth of
every person. Thanks to the Declaration, and States' commitments to its principles, the dignity of millions has been uplifted and the foundation for a more just world has been laid. While its promise is yet to be fully realized, the very fact that it has stood the test of time is testament to the enduring universality of its perennial values of equality, justice and human dignity.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights empowers us all. The principles enshrined in the Declaration are as relevant today as they were in 1948. We need to stand up for our own rights and those of others. We can take action in our own daily lives, to uphold the rights that protect us all and thereby promote the kinship of all human beings.
#StandUp4HumanRights

The Egyptian archaeological mission working in the south-east of King Amenemhat II’s
pyramid uncovered a number of archaeological burials that include coffins at the
archaeological area of Dahshour.
The mission’s Manager and Head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa
Waziry, said that the mission started working in this area in August 2018.
Inside the burials, the mission discovered eight coffins made of limestone that house
mummies covered with a layer of coloured cardboard in the shape of a human being.
Waziry explained that three of the discovered mummies are in good condition and date
back to the late era, stressing that the coffins are now in the warehouse for restoration.
He added that the pictures of the coffins were presented to the Committee of Museums tobe placed in the museums’ exhibitions established by the Ministry of Antiquities inside
Egypt.
Minister of Antiquities Khaled el-Anany announced on November 24 the discovery of
Mut Temple’s Tomb. The sarcophagus dates back to the 18th dynasty and houses a mummy wrapped in linen in a very good condition.
The first examination of the mummy revealed it was restored and re-wrapped in linen
during the late period. The sarcophagus was discovered by an archaeological mission affiliated to the French University of Strasbourg in the vicinity of tomb TT33 in the West Bank of Luxor.
http://www.egypttoday.com/Article/4/61104/8-coffins-uncovered-at-archaeological-area-of-
Dahshour

Archaeologists of the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) found three burials of the
ancient inhabitants of South America dated from 6 to 10 thousand years ago. The
excavations were carried out in Atahualpa anton, Ecuador. The findings belong to the Las Vegas archeological culture of the Stone Age.
Analysis of artifacts will help scientists understand the development of ancient cultures
on the shores of the Pacific Ocean and clarify the origin and development of ancient
American civilizations. Research is being jointly conducted by FEFU and Primorsky
Polytechnic University in Guayaquil (ESPOL, Ecuador).
Previously, FEFU scientists investigated the famous Neolithic settlement in Real Alto. In
2018, they decided to study an earlier site in order to trace the development of ancient
cultures on the Pacific Coast opposite to the Pacific Coast of Russia (Russian Far East). The archaeological site of Loma Atahualpa is more archaic than Real Alto, its materials are transitional from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic. We excavated three burials that were probably made at different times. This will make it possible to compare their materials and retrieve the new information on the development of ancient cultures in the period from 10 to 6 thousand years ago," said the Alexander Popov, director of the Educational and Scientific Museum of The School of Humanities of FEFU.
Expedition materials are processed by experts from several countries. The stone tools
found were examined at Tohoku University (Japan) for traces of mechanical activity in
order to understand how they were used. There were also sent samples for radiocarbon
dating. Simultaneously, anthropologists from The Kunstkamera (Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, St. Petersburg) and the Institute of the Problems of Northern development, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Tyumen, Russia) began to study the morphological features of the human remains found.
In the course of working with Ecuadorian colleagues, we have learned that our research
attracted the obvious attention of scientists. Last year's symposium, which was organized at the Real Alto Museum, was attended by colleagues from the United States, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Poland and other countries. We also cooperate with partners from several European countries and the Russian Academy of Sciences, said Alexander Popov.
Provided by: Far Eastern Federal University
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-11-archaeologists-oldest-burials-ecuador.html#jCp

A palm sized portrait author, Charles Dickens reportedly was found in a box of junk pieces at a house clearance sale in the South African city of Pietermaritzburg. It is believed that the last time the portrait was seen was in the late 19th century and then was reported unaccounted for by its artist, Margaret Gillies, according to CNN. It was reported that many attempts to locate the work failed and it was to be lost.

The people who found the portrait by accident in a garage sale, sent the piece to London’s antiques expert, Philip Mould of Philip Mould & Company, to be authenticated. Not only they authenticated the piece but also estimated the value of the portrait to be about a quarter of a million dollars.

According to Mould, this was a very interesting time for Dickens who had survived two flops, ‘The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit’ and ‘Barnaby Rudge,’ and needed something to get out of a time of insecurity for the author. This portrait was the picture of Dickens on the precipice of stardom.

The portrait which will have its first exhibition since 1844 required two months of restoration.

It is believed that the portrait was done over six to seven sittings in late 1843, when Dickens was 31 and writing what would be a bestseller, “A Christmas Carol.” The book, of course as we all know centered around the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge around Christmas, showed that “everyone has capacity for compassion. Many experts believe that the book also popularized Christmas, which was considered a second-rate holiday in the early 19th century.

The portrait is also remarkable for its female artist, Gillies, who like Dickens, shared an interest in social reform. She was an early supporter of women’s suffrage and, according to her correspondences with Dickens, had spirited debates with the author, whose works showed great empathy toward the vulnerable of post-Victorian society.

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—According to a Cosmos Magazine report, environmental changes are more likely to have wiped out Africa’s megafauna than is hunting by Homo
erectus, which emerged some 1.9 million years ago and has previously been blamed for causing the extinctions. Paleoecologist Tyler Faith of the University of Utah and his colleagues examined more than 100 fossil assemblages spanning the past seven million years found in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. The researchers found that African megafauna species of elephants, hippos, rhinoceroses, giraffes, and camels began to decline some 4.6 million years ago, or about 2.5 million years before the arrival of H. erectus. Faith adds that the rate of extinction did not accelerate when H. erectus finally emerged. Analysis of climate data, changes in soil chemistry, and trace elements in animal teeth suggests that a global drop in levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide led to expansion of grasslands and loss of forests and woody vegetation that the large-bodied mammals relied upon for food. “It’s really a long-term ecological process that’s really difficult to pin on increased carnivory by the tool-using, meat-eating hominids,” Faith said. For more, go to “Homo erectus Stands Alone.”