A new study of ancient DNA has completely changed our understanding of the peoples who lived in Stone Age and Bronze Age Europe. It was only about 1000 BC, well into the Iron Age, that we first saw light skinned individuals emerge on the continent. The study, published in BiorXiv, concludes that lighter skin and associated features such as green or blue eyes probably evolved several times over the course of human history, in response to migration from African into areas with lower UV radiation such as Europe. The study reaches back as far as 45,000 years ago and concludes that, for the vast majority of that time, this evolutionary change had not occurred and Europeans shared the same skin tone as their African ancestors. Absorption of UV radiation is essential for the production of Vitamin D and, all things being equal, paler skin is better at absorbing it. This would suggest that paler skins in more northern regions with less UV radiation would be a key advantage. The previous theoretical consensus was that lightening pigmentation would evolve gradually and in a linear fashion in response to the different conditions in Europe, but this was not the case. However there were other changes during the period which shed an interesting light on the evolution of Europeans. While the skin remained dark, eye color changed in a less predictable fashion. Eyes got paler until the Mesolithic, the middle Stone Age between roughly 15,000 and 5,000 years ago. At this point Europeans were predominantly dark skinned and blue eyed (as were the Neanderthals of the region, an interesting bit of convergent evolution). However from this point the number of dark eyes in the population began to increase again, for an unknown reason. Similarly, the team also saw evidence of localized variations suggesting that specific circumstances (and smaller, more isolated gene pools) could result in faster or more radical changes. Take for example the Neolithic farmers of Western Eurasia. These populations were faced with a wildly different lifestyle to their ancestors, and the pace of change for these peoples was accordingly a swift one. Gone were the semi-nocturnal hunter gatherer communities of forests and grasslands, adapted to long distance aerobic exercise and with their diet of meats and wild vegetables. In their place there was a people used to long daylight hours spent on heavy labor in a single place, tied to the land they cultivated. These farmers, in isolated communities, slowly developed paler skin at varying rates, but all generally faster than the Stone Age predecessors. This suggests a change in behavioral habits was also key to developing lighter skin, and that the environment alone was not a genetic disadvantage of darker skinned Neolithic humans. The changes to the diet of the Neolithic farmer resulted in less Vitamin D being taken in from foodstuffs. This meant that a paler skin was necessary for such communities to survive in health, and this is indeed what appears to have happened. And of course the study is far from conclusive. There may well have been isolated populations in the early Stone Age with paler skin, but only more research can tell us for sure. Header Image: Reconstruction of an early (between 37,000 and 42,000 years old) European Homo sapiens based on bones found in the cave Peştera cu Oase (Romania). Source: Daniela Hitzemann (photograph) / CC BY-SA 4.0.
Porridge but No Bread: What was on the Menu in Neolithic Denmark?
One of the most profound shifts in human prehistory occurred around 10,000 years ago. Our ancestors figured out that the plants they were eating did not need to grow where they were found: with the right approach they could grow anywhere you chose to grow them. And then everything began to change. This is known as the Neolithic Revolution in agriculture, and it led to everything from the domestication of farm animals to the establishing of settlements, villages, and cities. Out with the nomadic hunting and gathering, in with a settled life, a population boom and, eventually, civilization itself. There are still many questions about how this happened, as indeed there are about most everything this far back into the past. But thanks to a new study published in Springer Nature we may have the answers to just a few more of the questions. The study focuses on a site from the early Neolithic in Denmark, around 3,600 BC. The site was a settlement of the prehistoric peoples known as the Funnel Beaker culture, principally because they made beakers with funnels. Not just a clever name then. For a millennia and a half this loose-knit culture spread across northern Europe. They were agriculturalists, and evidence from the site, at Frydenlund, has revealed which crops they were growing here, and for what purpose. Evidence recovered from the site includes fruits and carbonized seeds: cooked whole for consumption. Several grinding stones were also discovered at the site, and microscopic analysis of their grinding surfaces allowed the team to assess what they were using for the flour they would use to make their bread. And this is where things get a little weird. The grindstones do not, in fact, appear to have been used for grinding the wheat found at the site, but instead were used exclusively for grinding wild plants. There is plenty of evidence of wheat, with seeds of durum and emmer wheats as well as naked barley found at Frydenlund, but it wasn’t what they were grinding. This led the team, led by archaeobotanist Dr. Welmoed Out from Moesgaard Museum in Denmark, to an unexpected conclusion. The Funnel Beaker people who lived here were not making bread at all, they were instead eating the cooked seeds in a sort of porridge, or gruel. Without sugar too: grim stuff. It had been previously thought that the Funnel Beaker culture had access to spelt, an ideal wheat for bread making. However the “spelt” at Frydenlund is apparently misidentified emmer wheat, deformed by heat as part of the cooking process. The study suggests that this is a wider classification error than this one site, and that in fact the Funnel Beaker culture may not have been cooking spelt at all. Were any of them making bread? This rather begs the question: what were they grinding at Frydenlund. Microscopic analysis suggests it was mostly grasses of the Pooideae family. Although this family includes wheat and barley, this does not appear to be what they were grinding: if they were grinding wheat, we would be able to see it in the remains. As the study states: “… unexpectedly, there is no evidence that the grinding stones were used for cereal de-husking and/or grinding, since cereal chaff phytoliths and cereal starch grains could not be positively demonstrated. Instead, the presence of starch indicates the use for grinding of unknown wild plants.” It remains to be seen whether this is an isolated and unusual case, or whether we are mistaken to assume that these Neolithic people were making bread at all. As we said before, there is a lot about our past that we still have to learn. Original Study: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00334-024-01020-9. Header Image: The Neolithic Funnel Beaker people at this Danish site were using grindstones and harvesting wheat, but they were making porridge, not bread. Source: Nationalmuseet / CC BY-SA 3.0.
Entirely Unknown Neolithic Culture Found in Morocco
Archaeologists excavating a site in the Maghreb desert in north western African known as Oued Beht have uncovered evidence of a farming society from the Neolithic that was completely unknown, according to a paper in the journal Antiquity, published by Cambridge University Press. The culture appears to have been complex and is, at this time, the earliest and largest society known from this period of history in Africa that is not based on the Nile. The area is rich in archaeology and we already know of cultures in the area from the Palaeolithic era, as well as later Iron Age societies and cultures that extend well into the Islamic period. However there has been a noted absence of any evidence of occupation between around 4,000 and 1,000 BC, and this culture fits right in the middle of this gap. This farming community has been dated to around 3,400 to 2,900 BC, placing them in the Neolithic. The discovery can potentially reveal much about the development of agriculture in the region and the unknown peoples who lived in the Maghreb during this time, bridging the gap between the earlier Stone Age societies and the Bronze and Iron Age peoples who came later. It is yet to be fully understood how these people interacted with other Neolithic groups in African and western Europe. However it appears that the new discovery is of a sophisticated society, and evidence of many structures including potential food storage pits have been uncovered. Much of what is known in the area comes from discoveries in caves, which are generally considered to not reflect the wider cultures from which they were derived. These new finds, of working and living environments, may teach much about the surrounding cultures and how these Stone Age farmers learned to survive in the shadow of the Atlas Mountains. Header Image: The site at Oued Beht where traces of an entirely unknown Neolithic culture has been found. Source: Antiquity; Cambridge University Press / CC BY 4.0.
