Mesolithic Skeleton known as 'Cheddar Man' shares the same DNA with English Teacher of History!

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BY THE ARCHAEOLOGIST EDITOR GROUP

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Separated by 10,000 years but linked by DNA! A 9,000-year-old skeleton's DNA was tested, and it was concluded that a living relative was teaching history about a half mile away, tracing back nearly 300 generations!

In the rolling hills of Somerset, England, beneath the shadow of the Cheddar Gorge cliffs, a millennia-old secret lay waiting. It was here, in 1903, that Gough's Cave revealed its most enigmatic resident, the Cheddar Man. This ancient skeleton, believed to be around 10,000 years old, offers a tantalizing glimpse into the lives of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, the earliest known population of Britain after the last Ice Age. But Cheddar Man was more than just a set of bones; he was a storyteller, and his tale would reshape our understanding of prehistoric Britain and the intricate tapestry of human evolution.

As archaeologists and anthropologists probed the skeleton, the initial insights they derived were profound. The man, who died in his twenties, belonged to a time when the landscapes of Britain were wild and untamed, and the inhabitants had to adapt swiftly to a post-glacial environment. But as insightful as these revelations were, it was the advent of ancient DNA research that would turn the Cheddar Man's story from an intriguing narrative into a groundbreaking scientific discovery.

Ancient DNA (aDNA) research has been likened to a time machine. With just a few fragments of bone or tooth, scientists can now venture back thousands of years, unraveling the genetic secrets of long-dead organisms. This revolutionary field emerged in the latter half of the 20th century, evolving rapidly with technological advancements in sequencing and bioinformatics. By the dawn of the 21st century, DNA research was poised to redraw the map of human prehistory, challenging long-held assumptions and revealing hitherto unknown migrations, interactions, and adaptations.

The Cheddar Man, with his pristine preservation, was an ideal candidate for this kind of investigation. And when his DNA was finally sequenced, the results were nothing short of astonishing. The portrait of ancient Britons began to shift. Instead of the pale-skinned, blue-eyed hunter-gatherers long imagined by scholars and artists, Cheddar Man's genetics painted a picture of dark skin with blue eyes, a combination that surprised many. This revelation not only transformed our understanding of Mesolithic Britons but also underscored the fluidity of human genetics and the profound influence of migration, interbreeding, and adaptation over millennia.

Yet, the Cheddar Man is but one chapter in the larger story of aDNA research. From the frozen tundras of Siberia to the sun-baked plains of Africa, ancient skeletons have been whispering their secrets to those who would listen. They tell tales of forgotten civilizations, lost migrations, ancient plagues, and the complex web of interactions that have shaped humanity's journey.

Four years before, when Adrian Targett, a retired history teacher from Somerset, walked into his local news agent's office, he was startled to see a familiar face staring up at him. That face, appearing on the front page of several newspapers, belonged to a distant relative of his—around 10,000 years distant, actually—known as Cheddar Man.

Four years before, when Adrian Targett, a retired history teacher from Somerset, walked into his local news agent's office, he was startled to see a familiar face staring up at him.

Ancient DNA from Cheddar Man, a Mesolithic skeleton discovered in 1903 at Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, has helped Museum scientists paint a portrait of one of the oldest modern humans in Britain. This discovery is consistent with a number of other Mesolithic human remains discovered throughout Europe. Cheddar Man is the oldest complete skeleton to be discovered in the UK and has long been hailed as the first modern Briton, who lived around 7,150 BC. His remains are kept by London's Natural History Museum in the Human Evolution gallery.

The Cheddar Man earned his name not because of his fondness for cheese, which likely wasn't cultivated until around 3,000 years later, but because he was found in Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, England (which is, incidentally, where cheddar cheese originates).

Some 25 years ago, in an amazing piece of DNA detective work, using genetic material taken from the cavity of one of Cheddar Man’s molar teeth, scientists were able to identify Mr. Targett, 62, as a direct descendant.

Analysis of his nuclear DNA indicates that he was a typical member of the Western European hunter-gatherer population at the time, with lactose intolerance, probably with light-colored eyes (most likely green but possibly blue or hazel), dark brown or black hair, and dark or dark-to-black skin, although an intermediate skin color cannot be ruled out. There are a handful of genetic variants linked to reduced pigmentation, including some that are very widespread in European populations today. However, Cheddar Man had “ancestral” versions of all these genes, strongly suggesting he would have had a “dark to black” skin tone.

Now Cheddar Man is back in the headlines because a new study of his DNA, using cutting-edge technology, has enabled researchers to create a forensic reconstruction of his facial features, skin and eye coloring, and hair texture. And the biggest surprise is the finding that this ancient Brit had ‘dark to black’ skin and bright blue eyes. (A previous reconstruction, before detailed genetic sequencing tests were available, assumed a white face, brown eyes and a ‘cartoon’ caveman appearance.)

No one had thought to tell Mr. Targett any of this or invite him to the unveiling of the new reconstruction of his ancestor at the Natural History Museum on Monday.

‘I do feel a bit more multicultural now,’ he laughs. ‘And I can definitely see that there is a family resemblance. That nose is similar to mine. And we have both got those blue eyes.’

The initial scientific analysis in 1997, carried out for a TV series on archaeological findings in Somerset, revealed Mr. Targett’s family line had persisted in the Cheddar Gorge area for around nine millennia, their genes being passed from mother to daughter through what is known as mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from the egg.

To put it simply, Adrian Targett and Cheddar Man have a common maternal ancestor.

It is only Cheddar Man’s skin color that marks the difference across this vast space of time. It was previously assumed that human skin tones lightened some 40,000 years ago as populations migrated north out of the harsh African sunlight, where darker skin had a protective function.

At less sunny latitudes, lighter skin would have conferred an evolutionary advantage because it absorbs more sunlight, which is required to produce vitamin D, a nutrient vital for preventing disabling illnesses such as the bone disease rickets. Later, when farming crops began to replace hunter-gatherer lifestyles and communities ate less meat, offal, and oily fish—aa dietary source of vitamin D—ppaler skins would have conferred an even greater advantage and accelerated the spread of relevant genes.

Earlier research suggested Cheddar Man looked like the impression, right, but now scientists are convinced he was dark skinned and had blue eyes and dark hair 

However, Cheddar Man’s complexion chimes with more recent research suggesting genes linked to lighter skin only began to spread about 8,500 years ago, according to population geneticists at Harvard University. They report that over a period of 3,000 years, dark-skinned hunter-gatherers such as Mr. Targett’s ancestors interbred with early farmers who migrated from the Middle East and who carried two genes for light skin (known as SLC24A5 and SLC45A2).

It is no surprise that Cheddar Gorge remains Britain’s prime site for Palaeolithic human remains. Cheddar Man was buried alone in a chamber near a cave mouth. But it’s not just Adrian Targett who has links with him. Indeed, for many modern Britons, Cheddar Man’s true face offers a uniquely close DNA encounter with their past. Modern Britons draw about 10 percent of their genetic ancestry from the West European hunter-gatherer population from which Cheddar Man sprang.

As we delve deeper into this narrative, it becomes evident that our past is far more intricate than textbooks might suggest. The Mesolithic skeletons and the vast array of ancient remains studied through the lens of genetics have unveiled a world where cultures blended, societies clashed, and humans constantly evolved in response to a changing world. The legacy of the Cheddar Man and others like him serves as a potent reminder: our history is written not just in books and artifacts but in the very fabric of our being—our DNA.

Brazil: Fossilised Eggs Dating 60-80 Mn Yrs Ago Belongs To Dinosaurs, Confirms Scientists

The eggs have a thick shell and were too large to be that of crocodiles and thus belong to carnivorous dinosaurs, said lead researcher William Roberto Nava.

Written By Harsh Vardhan

Palaeontologists, who discovered a nest of five eggs that got buried in loose sediment some 60 to 80 million years ago, have finally confirmed the origins of the fossils. Discovered by a research team in Brazil last year, the fossilized eggs were initially believed to have belonged to crocodiles, however, a deeper study has shed a different light. According to lead researcher William Roberto Nava, the eggs have a thick shell and were too large to be that of crocodiles and confirmed that the eggs belong to carnivorous dinosaurs.

The expert from the Paleontological Museum in Marilia also revealed that the eggs of dinosaurs and crocodiles also differ in size as the former measure four to five inches long and two to three inches wide whereas the latter measure no longer than three inches. Moreover, he said that a porous or smooth texture is a characteristic associated with the eggs of prehistoric crocodiles also called 'crocodylomorph' whereas the egg-shells of dinosaurs have a 'ripple-shaped' texture.

"The eggs are a little bigger than those of crocodylomorph. So we're associating these larger eggs, which are five, with some kind of theropod dinosaur, that is, a carnivorous dinosaur that lived at this point and used it millions of years ago to lay these eggs", Nava said in an interview with g1.

How were the eggs preserved for so long?

Unearthed in Presidente Prudente city of Brazil's São Paulo, the transformation of soil into sandstone over time had a big role in preserving the eggs. Over a course of millions of years, the eggs got covered with layers of sand which turned into sandstone allowing the egg to withstand the test of time." Who knows if in one of these [five] eggs we have a fossilized embryo. It would be super cool, it would be something new for Brazil", Nava was quoted as saying by g1.

2021’s Coolest Archaeology and Palaeontology Discoveries in China

Kevin McSpadden

Scientists might have found a new ancestor to humans (left), and the Sanxingdui archaeology site has produced unbelievable artefacts (right). Photo: Handout

The past 12 months have been a banner year in Chinese archaeology and palaeontology.

From finding a potential ancient human relative to an “alien civilisation”, some of the most exciting scientific breakthroughs in 2021 involved China.

They helped us learn more about our world long before humans roamed the Earth and told us fascinating stories about where we came from.

Here are eight of the most interesting Chinese archaeology and palaeontology finds for 2021.

The wonderful ruins of Sanxingdui

One of the most remarkable archaeological sites worldwide is the Sanxingdui ruins in central China’s Sichuan province.

Before this year, the site had already revealed incredible artefacts from what experts believe was the Shu civilisation. These bronze-age people had been a myth before the discovery of Sanxingdui.

The gold masks found in Sanxingdui are believed to be about 3,000 years old. Photo: Xinhua

This year, the world was awed when archaeologists revealed a stunning golden mask that had many people buzzing that it once belonged to aliens, which scientists were quick to dismiss.

Six months later, a better-preserved mask of similar style was revealed to the public, along with a treasure trove of other artefacts.

Finding the ‘Dragon Man’

Technically, the skull that would be nicknamed “Dragon Man” was discovered in 1933, but the person who found it did not think it was overly special, and the skull was reburied for 85 years.

This year, using the same skull, archaeologists announced what they believe is a new species of an archaic human called Homo longi.

Scientists think the species’ brain would have been the same size as Homo sapiens, but the skull has larger eye sockets, a thick mouth and overgrown teeth.

This skull belongs to what may be an newly discovered species of prehistoric human. Photo: AFP

The announcement is not without debate, as many scientists think it might be a Denisova hominins, a previously identified extinct species of human.

Regardless, the skull does provide a lot of evidence that the development of modern humans was not a simple linear evolutionary path but likely involved significant crossbreeding between the species.

Descendants of a primitive Asian population

New research suggests the 4,000-year-old naturally embalmed mummies found in Xinjiang in northwest China were direct descendants of Ancient North Eurasians, an ancient people that had a large footprint in the region.

The paper dispelled theories that they had migrated from Afghanistan, Siberia and central Asian mountains. The mummies were excavated between 1979 and 2017.

These people probably died naturally and were preserved by the arid climate in Xinjiang, allowing scientists to use DNA analysis to pinpoint their ancestors.

Will we find dinosaur DNA soon?

A team of scientists found well-preserved cartilage cells that included an image of a nucleus in a birdlike dinosaur called Caudipteryx.

The nucleus contained “fossilised threads of chromatin”, raising the tantalising possibility that palaeontologists could one day find the remains of dinosaur DNA.

A 3D rendering of the Caudipteryx. Photo: Shutterstock

Before this study, palaeontologists had believed that it would be improbable to find fossilised dinosaur DNA because it is too fragile to survive for hundreds of millions of years.

Finding the possible source of the world’s first coins

Archaeologists in central China found a mint that they believe may be the spot where people produced humanity’s first coins.

While the mint itself is long gone, the team found a pit filled with the industrial waste produced by coin production.

If correct, the discovery would mean people began producing coins about a century before initially thought. Currently, the world’s oldest mint was found in the Kingdom of Lydia in what is now western Turkey.

This overhead shot might be the first place humans minted coins. Photo: Zhengzhou University

The mint in Lydia is thought to have run sometime between 619BC and 560BC, while the one discovered in central China’s Henan province is estimated to have begun operating between 640BC and 550BC.

Do the Turkish and Japanese languages share a common ancestor?

New research published this year points to the possibility that the founding language of what would eventually split into a distinct group of five diverse tongues originally came from what is now northwest China.

The scientists said genetic, archaeological and linguistic analysis points to the fact that the five Transeurasian languages – Mongolian, Turkish, Tungusic, Japanese and Korean – originated in millet farmers in the Liao valley.

However, the relationship between Transeurasian languages is a source of intense debate, and many scientists hesitate to include Japanese and Korean in the language family.

A bird, oh wait, dinosaur, in an egg

It is widely accepted that modern birds are the descendants of dinosaurs, but the recent discovery of a fossilised embryo solidified the theory.

‘Baby Yingliang’ is the first discovery of a non-avian dinosaur that shares the developmental pattern of birds, notably with its head positioned below its body in the egg and its feet resting on both sides.

A dinosaur was discovered ‘tucking’ (pictured), strengthening the theory that they evolved from birds. Photo: Julius Csotonyi

The team wrote that this characteristic, called tucking, suggests a strong connection between birds and theropods, the group of dinosaurs that includes the Tyrannosaurus rex.

The fossil is between 66 and 72 million years old and was found in southeastern China.

Rediscovering an emperor

For nearly 1,000 years, Chinese people had believed Emperor Wen, the fifth ruler of the Han dynasty, was buried somewhere in a mountain named the Phoenix’s Mouth outside Xian. It turned out that the actual tomb lay a few kilometres away.

Called Emperor Wen’s Ba Mausoleum, the pyramid-shaped resting place had long been covered by the shifting environment over the centuries, making it hard to pinpoint as a unique archaeological site.

The site started to receive attention when artefacts discovered in the area were of exceptionally high quality for the time.

Emperor Wen is well-received in Chinese history and is considered a leader who oversaw a period of stability and economic growth.

A Great Discovery: Researchers Find a Preserved Dinosaur Embryo in a 72 million-year-old Fossilized Egg

Scientists discovered an incredibly rare baby dinosaur egg that is estimated to be a 70-million-year-old fossil.

They named it the Baby Yingliang after the name of the Chinese museum where it’s currently housed. The fossil egg preserves the embryonic skeleton of an oviraptorid dinosaur. Researchers published their findings on Tuesday and said the baby dinosaur’s posture is similar to that of a late-stage modern bird embryo.

The baby dinosaur is estimated to be about 70 million years old and a type of oviraptorosaur, a group of beaked therapod dinosaurs closely related to modern birds that lived about 130 million to 66 million years ago, according to National Geographic.

The egg was exceptionally preserved at around 7 inches long, and the baby dinosaur inside was estimated to be about 11 inches long from head to tail. Researchers believe that if it had lived, it would have grown to be about 2 to 3 meters long.

The baby fossil egg was found in China’s Jiangxi province and acquired in 2000 by Liang Liu, director of Yingliang Group, a Chinese stone company. The egg wound up in storage and wasn’t analyzed until about 10 years later during the construction of the Yingliang Stone Nature History Museum.

Skeletons of dinosaurs are rarely preserved in the embryonic stage, while the animal is unhatched from its egg. Through the discovery of Baby Yingliang, researchers from China, the U.K. and Canada were able to study the positions of the dinosaur with other previously found oviraptorid embryos. According to CNN, they concluded that they were moving and changing poses before hatching in a way similar to baby birds. 

Baby birds typically move in a way called tucking, which is controlled by the central nervous system and critical for a successful hatching. Beyond the pre-hatching behavior, Zelenitsky told CNN that dinosaurs were also known to sit on top of their eggs to incubate them, similar to the way birds do.

All birds evolved directly from a group of two-legged dinosaurs known as theropods, which include the Tyrannosaurus rex and smaller velociraptors. 

Morocco: Archaeologists Discovered the World’s Oldest Jewelry

Archaeologists found 150,000-Year-Old snail shell beads in Morocco's Bizmoune Cave.

In a cave in the western Morocco desert, archaeologists have discovered the world’s oldest jewelry: a set of shell beads dated from 142,000 and 150,000 years ago.

Made from half-inch-long sea snail shells, the 33 beads turned up during excavations conducted between 2014 and 2018 near the mouth of Bizmoune Cave, about 10 miles inland from the coastal city of Essaouira.

Surveyors first found the cave in 2004, and initial excavations had been conducted in 2008 and 2009. The team behind the discovery published their findings earlier this fall in the journal Science Advances.

“[The beads] were probably part of the way people expressed their identity with their clothing,” Steven L. Kuhn, a professor of anthropology in the University of Arizona and one of the paper’s authors, said in a statement. “They’re the tip of the iceberg for that kind of human trait. They show that it was present even hundreds of thousands of years ago, and that humans were interested in communicating to bigger groups of people than their immediate friends and family.”

An international team of archaeologists recovered the 33 beads, between 2014 and 2018, from a cave in western Morocco. Photo by Steven L. Kuhn, courtesy of the University of Arizona.

The archaeologists used uranium-series dating, which measure the radioactive decay of uranium, to test the age of the beads and the surrounding layers of ash and sediment. The beads come from two sea snail species: the Columbella rustica, from the dove snail family, and Tritia gibbosula, commonly called the swollen nassa.

Each bead had a hole drilled through it, presumably so the ornaments could be hung on strings or clothing, possibly worn as earrings or a necklace. Many have smoothed, polished edges, suggesting the intentional work of a craftsperson. They are similar to other finds on the African continent, but the earliest examples had previously been just 130,000 years old.

“We don’t know what they meant,” Kuhn added, “but they’re clearly symbolic objects that were deployed in a way that other people could see them.”

By Sarah Cascone

'Persephone': A Unique Guide-Robot that leads Visitors in a Greek Cave in Macedonia

Persephone is a tour guide in Greece, but perhaps not the type people are used to.

Billed as the world’s first robot tour guide inside a cave, Persephone has been welcoming visitors since mid-July to the Alistrati Cave in northern Greece, 84 miles northeast of the city of Thessaloniki.

The multilingual robot covers the first roughly 500 feet of the part of the cave that is open to the public. In the remaining 2,400 feet, a human guide takes over.

The robot was named Persephone because, according to one version of the ancient Greek myth, it was in a nearby plain that Pluto — the god of the underworld who was also known as Hades — abducted Persephone, with the consent of her father Zeus, to take her as his wife.

The robot can give its part of the tour in 33 languages and interact at a basic level with visitors in three languages. It can also answer 33 questions, but only in Greek. Visitors will also be able to hear the myth of Persephone's abduction in Ancient Greek!

Nikos Kartalis, the scientific director for the Alistrati site, had the idea of creating the robot when he saw one on TV guiding visitors at an art gallery. Seventeen years later, “we got our funds and the robot guide became a reality,” Kartalis told The Associated Press.

The robot was built by the National Technology and Research Foundation and cost $139,000.

“We already have a 70% increase in visitors compared to last year since we started using” the robot, says Kartalis. “People are enthusiastic, especially the children, and people who had visited in the past are coming back to see the robot guide.”

“It is something unprecedented for them, to have the ability to interact with their robot by asking it questions and the robot answering them,” he said. “Many foreign visitors couldn’t believe Greece had the capacity to build a robot and use it as a guide in the cave.”

The robot moves along a walkway, passing through an ornate landscape of stalactites and stalagmites. These varied formations can reach 50 feet tall and are seen throughout the cave’s nearly 1.6-mile walkway, which is accessible to people with limited mobility.

“This cave is one of the most beautiful, not only in Greece but in Europe, as well,” says Kartalis. “It has stalactites and stalagmites in many shapes and colors, even red.”

He said the cave was 3 million years old and was first explored in 1974 by the Hellenic Speleological Society and a team of Austrian speleologists. It opened to visitors in 1998.

Persephone, with a white body, black head and two luminous eyes, moves on wheels, guiding visitors to the first three of eight stops along the walkway. She can do two more stops, but her low speed slows down the tour, which is conducted in three languages simultaneously. Persephone’s creators are considering ways to speed her up.

The robot’s begins by saying: “My name is Persephone, I am the daughter of the goddess Demeter and the wife of Pluto, the god of the underworld. I welcome you to my under Earth kingdom, the Alistrati Cave.”

Many visitors are intrigued by the robot guide.

“It was surprising for me. I’ve never experienced such a thing. Actually, honestly, I prefer a live guide, but it’s interesting doing it this way. And I like the pace of the robot. It goes slower, so I can look around,” said Patrick Markes, a Czech visitor.

Markes listened to the first three stops from the robοt in his native language and the rest in English from a human tour guide.

“I should thank Persephone, our robot, she said very fine things,” said Christos Tenis, a Greek visitor. “I’m impressed by the cave. Of course, we had a flawless (human) guide, she explained many things. I’m very impressed.”

Persephone is not the only technology used inside the cave. There’s a cellphone app in which a visitor, scanning a QR code, can see the Alistrati Beroni. That’s a microorganism that is only found in this cave, in the huge mounds of bat droppings left behind when the cave was opened and the bats migrated elsewhere.

Evdokia Karafera is one of the tour guides who partners with the robot.

“It is helpful, because it speaks many languages. There’s just a little delay in the touring,” she said. “Most find it fascinating, especially the children, and find it interesting that it speaks many languages.”

Karafera insisted, however, that human tour guides cannot be completely replaced.

“Robots, at some point in the future, will take over many jobs. But I believe they cannot replace humans everywhere,” she said. “(Visitors say) ‘the robot is interesting, original, but can’t substitute for the human contact with the guide and the conversation we can have on the way back.’”

Source: Associated Press

100,000-Year-Old Fossilized Footprints Track Neanderthals’ Trip to Spanish Coast

Some of the imprints appear to have been left by a child “jumping irregularly as though dancing,” researchers say

Researchers discovered 87 Neanderthal footprints, as well as a number of tracks left by prehistoric animals. (Mayoral et al. / Scientific Reports)

Around 100,000 years ago, a group of Neanderthals with children in tow walked along the coast of what is now southern Spain, leaving behind footprints as they padded through the sand. Now, reports Charlie Devereux for the London Times, researchers studying these fossilized footfalls say that some were left by a youngster “jumping irregularly as though dancing.”

Two biologists discovered the prints while strolling along the beach at Matalascañas, in Doñana National Park, last June. As paleontologists led by Eduardo Mayoral of the University of Huelva write for the Conversation, they investigated the site soon after, finding a large number of fossilized animal tracks (presumably made by deer, wild boars, extinct cattle known as aurochs and aquatic birds) and at least 87 Neanderthal footprints. The team published its findings in the journal Scientific Reports in March.

“We have found some areas where several small footprints appeared grouped in a chaotic arrangement,” Mayoral tells Tom Metcalfe of Live Science. “[These prints] could indicate an area of passage of very young individuals, as if they were playing or loitering on the shore of the nearby waterlogged area.”

The researchers used special equipment to scan the prints and determine their size and depth—key indicators of their owners’ height and age, reports Isaac Schultz for Gizmodo. They concluded that a total of 36 individuals—including 11 children and 25 adults—created the markings.

Of these 26 adults, 5 were female, 14 were male and 6 were of undetermined sex, according to the study. On average, they stood between 4 and 5 feet tall; one outlier appeared to be taller than the rest, but as Gizmodo notes, this individual could have simply been “a Neanderthal of a more than standard height who stomped a bit harder than everyone else.”

Per the paper, the two smallest markings measured just 5.5 inches long. Scholars speculate that a 6-year-old child left these petite prints behind.

The team analyzed the footprints' length and depth to gain a sense of their owners' height and age. (Mayoral et al. / Scientific Reports)

Overall, reports David Miranda for National Geographic España, the team estimated the heights of 31 footprints’ owners: Based on this data, 7 of the fossilized marks corresponded with children, while 15 were created by adolescents and 9 by adults.

Writing for the Conversation, the authors suggest that the Neanderthals made the impressions while hunting for birds and small carnivores, fishing near a communal watering hole, or searching for shellfish. As the Times notes, they could have also simply been frolicking on the shore.

The imprints date back to roughly 106,000 years ago, during the Upper Pleistocene period, when Neanderthals were known to live in the region. Per the London Natural History Museum, these early hominids inhabited Europe between 400,000 and 40,000 years ago. Modern humans arrived on the continent some 46,000 to 44,000 years ago, meaning that the two species could have overlapped for as long as 8,000 years, a landmark pair of studies reported last year.

In 2019, researchers in Le Rozel, France, unearthed 257 Neanderthal footprints dated to about 80,000 years ago. The newly discovered Matalascañas prints predate these impressions by tens of thousands of years—a timeline that leads Mayoral and his colleagues to argue that they are the oldest Neanderthal hominid tracks in Europe, and perhaps even the world.

Though the scholars uncovered the footprints near a body of water, they emphasize that this doesn’t mean Neanderthals were frequent beachgoers. Instead, it’s more likely that the sandy beach provided a solid foundation for the footprints to fossilize.

“The fact that Le Rozel and Matalascañas sites are located on the coast does not necessarily mean that Neanderthals spent more time in this type of environment,” co-author Jérémy Duveau, a paleoanthropologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, tells Gizmodo. “We must keep in mind that Neanderthals were hunter-gatherers who moved regularly to acquire resources.”

By Isis Davis-Marks, SMITHSONIANMAG.COM

This Pterosaur Supported Its Giant Neck With Bones Built Like Bicycle Wheels

About 100 million years ago, gigantic flying reptiles with necks longer than those of giraffes cruised the skies of modern-day Morocco. Scientists think this kind of pterosaur, with its large jaw and slim neck, preyed on fish, small mammals, and even baby dinosaurs. But how their necks didn’t snap as they carried their prey has long been a mystery. Now, a new study shows the bones inside had an intricate spokelike structure that made them strong and stable, but light enough for flight.

Azhdarchid pterosaurs (named after a dragonlike creature in Persian mythology) from Morocco are some of the largest flying animals that ever lived. With wingspans up to 8 meters and necks as long as 1.5 meters, scientists have always wondered how their unusual bodies allowed them to hunt, walk, and fly. “With size comes all kinds of complicated biological problems,” says Nizar Ibrahim, an anatomist and paleontologist at the University of Portsmouth and a study co-author. “How do you build a skeleton for a giant flyer?”

To learn more about their bones, researchers examined the internal structure of a well-preserved azhdarchid pterosaur vertebra; it was nearly 100 million years old, and had been found in the Kem Kem beds, a fossil-rich region near the border of Morocco and Algeria. Using x-ray computed tomography and 3D modeling, the scientists found the vertebra was filled with dozens of 1-millimeter-thick spikes, called trabeculae, crossing each other like the spokes of a bicycle wheel in cross section, and forming a helix along the bone. The spokes surrounded a central tube where the animal’s spinal cord would have been. “We just could not believe it,” says Cariad Williams, a paleontologist at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who first looked at the scans. “We have never seen anything like it before. … It was really impressive.”

Azhdarchid pterosaurs spent a good part of their time on land hunting small mammals, baby dinosaurs, and fish.

To test whether the spokes provided extra support to the bones, the researchers did some mathematical modeling. They found that as few as 50 trabeculae almost doubled the vertebra’s ability to carry weight, they report today in iScience. The researchers also calculated that the neck of their specimen could lift prey weighing between 9 and 11 kilograms, roughly the size of a large turkey. “It’s a real feat of biological engineering,” Ibrahim says.

Besides allowing the pterosaurs to catch and lift their prey, the intricate bone structure of their necks could have helped them withstand the strong winds that buffeted their large skulls while flying, or the fierce blows of fellow males during rivalry brawls, the authors note.

Many scientists suspected that azhdarchid pterosaurs ate large prey, but this is the first time researchers have tested that hypothesis using information about internal bone structure, says paleontologist Rodrigo Pêgas of the Federal University of ABC, São Bernardo. The analysis the team used to show how the vertebrae would respond to external forces was particularly good, Pêgas says. “It’s interesting that they were able to demonstrate quantitatively … that the animal was capable of lifting [such] prey.”

However, Pêgas wishes the team had scanned the vertebrae of other pterosaurs to find out whether the spokelike bones were unique to the azhdarchids. Alexander Kellner, a paleontologist and director of the National Museum at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, agrees. “I’m not very impressed,” he says. “I think you should have more specimens to really make a claim.” He says he has noticed in his research pterosaur vertebrae with more or less trabeculae. Williams says scanning more vertebrae is next on the team’s list.

But finding the right vertebrae could be tough, because fossilized pterosaur bones that retain their 3D structure are rare; Ibrahim notes that the vertebra in the current study is remarkably well preserved. Even so, the researchers are considering several localities where they might find well-preserved pterosaur vertebrae. “When the pandemic is over, we’ll try,” he says.

As much as the new study has revealed, there is still much to learn, Ibrahim says. Many fundamental aspects of azhdarchid biology—even their average weight—remain unknown, he says, because there’s no living creature that compares to these flying reptiles. “This paper serves as a reminder that we’re really just scratching the surface.”

By Rodrigo Pérez Ortega

Prehistoric cannibal Homo antecessor's victim was eventually a young girl

The individual was formerly known as "The Boy of Gran Dolina."

A reconstruction of the Homo antecessor H3, now known as the "Girl of Gran Dolina." (Image credit: Tom Björklund)

About 800,000 years ago in what is now Spain, cannibals devoured an early human child who became known as "The Boy of Gran Dolina." But new analysis of these ancient remains has revealed a surprising twist: the child was a girl.

The child was a Homo antecessor, an early hominin species that lived in Europe between 1.2 million and 800,000 years ago. Discovered in 1994 in the Gran Dolina cave in northern Spain's Atapuerca Mountains, the species is known primarily from fragments of bones and teeth, which hampered researchers' efforts to determine the sex of H. antecessor individuals. 

Recently, scientists tested a new technique, using a type of dental analysis that had successfully identified males and females in other early human species. They examined teeth from two Gran Dolina individuals: "H1" and "H3". H1, whose remains defined the H. antecessor species, was about 13 years old at the time of death and was long presumed to be male. The second individual, H3 — The Boy of Gran Dolina — died at the age of 11 years old and was also thought to be male. 

Microscopic analysis of the tooth structure for the new study revealed variations between H1's and H3's teeth that researchers identified as sexually dimorphic — differing in appearance between males and females. Based on comparisons with teeth from humans and other hominins, the scientists determined that H1 was male, but H3 was likely female.

Certain skeletal features, such as pelvis shape, size of the brow ridge and robustness of bone where muscles attach, can reveal clues about the sex of extinct human relatives. But these features only indicate the sex of adult skeletons, and about 75% of the Gran Dolina remains belong to pre-adolescent children. What's more, those cave skeletons were highly fragmented, likely because they were cannibalized.

Teeth, however, are often well-preserved in ancient archaeological sites. Other researchers had previously analyzed canine teeth to determine sex in humans (with an accuracy up to 92.3%) in populations of Neanderthals from a site in Krapina, Croatia, and in earlier hominins from Spain's Sima de los Huesos ("Pit of Bones") site in Atapuerca. 

Tooth crowns are fully formed by age 6, and since older children typically have at least some of their adult teeth, analysis of dental features "can be especially useful in paleoanthropology for estimating the sex of immature individuals," and could be applied to the children's remains from Gran Dolina, the scientists reported March 10 in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences.

Permanent canines of individuals from Gran Dolina. The upper row shows the maxilla of individual H3, while the lower row shows views of the left maxillary canine belonging to individual H1. (Image credit: García-Campos C, Martinén-Torres M, Modesto-Mata M, Martín-Francés L, Martínez de Pinillos M, Bermúdez de Castro JM./J Anthropol Sci. 2021 Mar 10;99.)

The whole tooth

For the new study, the researchers looked at upper canines — the most sexually dimorphic teeth — from H1 and H3. Using high-resolution X-ray scans, they measured tissue volume and surface area of the two teeth, and compared them with existing tooth scans from modern humans, remains from the Krapina site and from Atapuerca's "Pit of Bones."

The study authors discovered that the canine from H3 had more surface enamel than H1's canine, a feature associated with female teeth. By comparison, the canine from H1 had a higher crown with more dentin, the dense, bony tissue underneath the enamel; higher dentin content is a feature of male teeth, the scientists reported. Because H1's canines were also unusually large, experts had previously guessed that the individual was male, and the new analysis confirmed that hypothesis. However, the differences between the H1 and H3 canines matched sexually dimorphic variations in other human teeth, suggesting that H3 was female.

"'The Boy of Gran Dolina' would really have been 'The Girl of Gran Dolina,'" lead study author Cecilia García-Campos, a physical anthropologist at CENIEH, said in the statement. 

The girl would have been between 9 and 11 years old when she was killed and eaten, according to the study. And she wasn't the only victim; the remains from 22 H. antecessor individuals in Gran Dolina displayed signs of being cannibalized, with bones showing cuts, fractures where they had been cracked open to expose the marrow, and even tooth marks, Live Science previously reported. 

One possible explanation for this ancient cannibalism is that humans were easier to catch and more nutritious than other animals, researchers wrote in 2019 in the Journal of Human Evolution. Compared with other types of prey, "a lot of food could be obtained from humans at low cost," CENIEH researcher Jesús Rodríguez, lead author of the 2019 study, said in a statement that year.

Originally published on Live Science.

New Evidence for Human Activity in North America 130,000 Years Ago

Researchers say prehistoric mastodon bones bear human-made markings

The surface of mastodon bone showing half impact notch on a segment of femur. (Tom Deméré, San Diego Natural History Museum)

In 1992, construction workers were digging up a freeway in San Diego, California when they came across a trove of ancient bones. Among them were the remains of dire wolves, camels, horses and gophers—but the most intriguing were those belonging to an adult male mastodon. After years of testing, an interdisciplinary team of researchers announced this week that these mastodon bones date back to 130,000 years ago.

The researchers then went on to make an even more stunning assertion: These bones, they claim, also bear the marks of human activity.
The team’s findings, published today in the journal Nature, could upend our current understanding of when humans arrived in North America—already a flashpoint among archaeologists. Recent theories posit that people first migrated to the continent about 15,000 years ago along a coastal route, as Jason Daley writes in Smithsonian. But in January, a new analysis of horse remains from the Bluefish Caves by archaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars suggested that humans may have lived on the continent as early as 24,000 years ago.

The new study, however, suggests that some type of hominin species—early human relatives from the genus Homo—was bashing up mastodon bones in North America about 115,000 years earlier than the commonly accepted date. That’s a staggeringly early date, and one that is likely to raise eyebrows. There is no other archaeological evidence attesting to such an early human presence in North America.

“I realize that 130,000 years is a really old date,” Thomas Deméré, principal paleontologist at the San Diego Museum of Natural History and one of the authors of the study, conceded during a press conference. “Of course, extraordinary claims like this require extraordinary evidence.” Deméré and his co-authors believe that their discoveries at the Cerutti Mastodon site—as the area of excavation is known—provide just that. 

San Diego Natural History Museum Paleontologist Don Swanson pointing at rock fragment near a large horizontal mastodon tusk fragment. (San Diego Natural History Museum)

Palaeontologists working at the site found an assortment of mastodon remains, including two tusks, three molars, 16 ribs, and more than 300 bone fragments. These fragments bore impact marks suggesting that they had been smacked with a hard object: Some of the shattered bones contained spiral fractures, indicating that they were broken while still “fresh,” the authors write. 

Amidst the fine-grain sands at the site, researchers also discovered five hulking stones. According to the study, the stones were used as makeshift hammers and anvils, or “cobbles.” They showed signs of impact—fragments found in the area could in fact be repositioned back into the cobbles—and two distinct clusters of broken bones surrounded the stones, suggesting that the bones had been smashed in that location.

“These patterns taken together have led us to the conclusion that humans were processing mastodon bones using hammer stones and anvils,” Deméré said at the press conference. He was joined by three of his co-authors: Steven Holen, co-director of the Center for American Paleolithic Research; James Paces, a research geologist at the United States Geological Survey; and Richard Fullagar, a professor of archaeology at the University of Wollongong, Australia.

There is no evidence of butchery at the site, so the team suspects that its occupants were breaking the bones to make tools and extract marrow.

To bolster their theory, researchers analyzed mastodon bones found in later North American sites, which date from 14,000 to 33,000 years ago. These bones displayed the same fracture patterns that were observed among the remains of the Cerutti Mastodon. Researchers also tried to replicate the activity that may have occurred at the site by smacking at the bones of a recently deceased elephant, the mastodon’s closest living relative.

Their efforts “produced exactly the same kinds of fracture patterns that we see on the Cerutti mastodon limb bones,” said Holen.

“[W]e can eliminate all of the natural processes that break bones like this,” Holen added. “These bones were not broken by carnivore-chewing, they were not broken by other animals trampling on the bone.”

Mastodon skeleton schematic showing which bones and teeth of the animal were found at the site. (Dan Fisher and Adam Rountrey, University of Michigan)

While some members of the team were wreaking havoc on elephant remains, efforts were underway to date the Cerutti mastodon bones.

Attempts at radiocarbon dating proved unsuccessful because the bones did not contain a sufficient amount of carbon-containing collagen. So researchers turned to uranium–thorium dating, a technique that is often used to check radiocarbon-derived dates. Uranium–thorium dating, which can be used on carbonate sediments, bones and teeth, makes it possible to date objects far older than 50,000 years, the upper limit of radiocarbon dating. Using this method, scientists were able to assign an approximate age of 130,000 years to the Cerutti bones. 

While the study’s authors believe that their evidence is ironclad, other experts aren’t so sure. Briana Pobiner, a paleoanthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program, says it is “nearly impossible” to rule out the possibility that the bones were broken by natural processes, like sediment impaction.   

“I would have liked to see really easily identifiable stone tools,” she says “[The study theorizes that early humans were] bashing open bones with natural rocks. Both of those things are kind of hard to distinguish in the archaeological record book: natural rocks that were used and also the bones that were bashed open.” 

Still, Pobiner says she is excited about the researchers’ findings. “They have broken mammoth bones, they have broken stones, they have patterning, and damage and wear on both the bones and the stones, which look human-modified,” she explains. “I think that the combination of evidence is on the way to being convincing.” 

The authors of the study have anticipated that their conclusions will be met with some wariness. “I know people will be skeptical of this, because it is so surprising,” Holen said during the press conference. “I was skeptical when I first looked at the material myself. But it's definitely an archaeological site.”

Restoration of an American mastodon

Researchers also acknowledged that for now, the study raises more questions than it answers. For instance: Who were the early humans described by the study, and how did they arrive in North America? “The simple answer is we don't know,” said Fullagar.

But he went on to venture a few guesses. The occupants of the Cerutti Mastodon site could have been Neanderthals, their Denisoven cousins, or even anatomically modern humans. They might have been some type of hybrid population. “[R]ecent genetic studies indicate that rather than dealing with a single, isolated species of migrating hominids or humans, we're actually dealing with an intermixing, a kind of meta population of humans,” Fullagar noted.

These humans, whoever they were, may have migrated across the Bering land bridge or sailed along the coast to North America, researchers said. There is evidence to suggest that early humans in other parts of the world were able to make water crossings. Archaeologists have found hand axes dating to at least 130,000 years ago on the island of Crete, which has been surrounded by water for about five million years, according to Heather Pringle at National Geographic.  

Moving forward, the team plans to seek out new archaeological sites and take a fresh look at artifact collections that may contain undetected signs of human activity. “[W]e fully intend to keep this type of research going in the future, to look in collections all over Southern California, and to continue to do fieldwork looking for more sites of this age,” Holen said.

If humans did roam through North America 130,000 years ago, their numbers were likely sparse. This means that the chances of finding human remains are slim—but not out of the question, says Pobiner of Smithsonian. “If people were in North America 130,000 years ago,” she said. “I don't see why we wouldn't find them.”

By Brigit Katz, SMITHSONIANMAG.COM

Bulgarian cave remains reveal surprises about earliest Homo sapiens in Europe

DNA extracted from remains found in a Bulgarian cave of three people who lived roughly 45,000 years ago is revealing surprises about some of the first Homo sapiens populations to venture into Europe, including extensive interbreeding with Neanderthals and genetic links to present-day East Asians.

A view of excavations at Bacho Kiro Cave in Bulgaria, where the remains of Homo sapiens who lived approximately 45,000 years ago were found, is seen in this undated handout photograph. (Nikolay Zaheriev, MPI-EVA Leipzig/Handout via Reuters).

Scientists said on Wednesday they sequenced the genomes of these three individuals - all males - using DNA obtained from a molar and bone fragments discovered in Bacho Kiro Cave near the town of Dryanovo, as well as one female who lived roughly 35,000 years ago at the same site.

Our species first appeared in Africa approximately 300,000 years ago and later trekked to other parts of the world, sometimes encountering Neanderthals - our close cousins - already inhabiting parts of Eurasia. The three Bacho Kiro Cave males represent the oldest securely dated Homo sapiens individuals from Europe.

They had 3% to 3.8% Neanderthal DNA, and had Neanderthal ancestors about five to seven generations back in their family histories, evidence of interbreeding, said geneticist Mateja Hajdinjak of the Francis Crick Institute in London, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

A molar of a male Homo sapiens individual who lived approximately 45,000 years ago, found in Bacho Kiro cave in Bulgaria, that yielded DNA that revealed new information about some of the earliest members of our species who trekked into Europe is shown in three views in this undated handout image. (Reuters).

Interbreeding, known as admixture, between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals before the extinction of Neanderthals sometime after 40,000 years ago has been previously shown, with present-day human populations outside Africa bearing a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA.

The prevalence of this interbreeding and the relationship and power dynamics between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals has been harder to understand - including any role our species played in the demise of the Neanderthals. The new study suggests interbreeding was more common than previously known for the first Homo sapiens in Europe.

A view of excavations at Bacho Kiro Cave in Bulgaria, where the remains of Homo sapiens who lived approximately 45,000 years ago were found, is seen in this undated handout photograph. (Nikolay Zaheriev, MPI-EVA Leipzig/Handout via Reuters).

It is an “amazing observation” that all three individuals had Neanderthal ancestors in their recent family history, said geneticist and study co-author Svante Pääbo, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.

“This makes it likely that the earliest modern humans frequently mixed with Neanderthals when they met. It may even be the case that part of the reason Neanderthals disappeared is that they were simply absorbed into larger modern human groups. It may be just part of the reason they disappeared but the data supports such a scenario,” Pääbo said.

The researchers detected a genetic contribution among present-day people from the group that included these three, but unexpectedly it was found particularly in East Asia, including China, rather than Europe. This suggested that some people from this group eventually headed east.

“This study shifted our previous understanding of early human migrations into Europe in a way that it showed how even the earliest history of modern humans in Europe may have been tumultuous and involved population replacements,” Hajdinjak said.

The notion of population replacement was illustrated by the fact that the 35,000-year-old individual from Bacho Kiro Cave belonged to a group genetically unrelated to the site’s earlier inhabitants.

Another study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution shed more light on Europe’s early Homo sapiens populations.

Scientists sequenced the genome of a Homo sapiens female using DNA extracted from a skull found at a site southwest of Prague in the Czech Republic. She is believed to have lived more than 45,000 years ago, though radiocarbon dating efforts to determine a firm date were unsuccessful.

This woman carried 3% Neanderthal ancestry and bore genetic traits suggesting she had dark skin and dark eyes, said geneticist Kay Prüfer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the study’s lead author.

“Her skull shows evidence of gnawing by a predator, possibly a hyena,” Prüfer said.

Her group, distinct from the one in Bulgaria, appears to have died out without leaving genetic ancestry among modern-day people.

Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien

REUTERS

Bacho Kiro cave Bulgaria (VOA).

What do we call 'Artificial cranial deformation' in archaeology and why did ancient civilizations practised it?

Artificial cranial deformation or modification, head flattening, or head binding is a form of body alteration in which the skull of a human being is deformed intentionally. It is done by distorting the normal growth of a child's skull by applying force. Flat shapes, elongated ones (produced by binding between two pieces of wood), rounded ones (binding in cloth), and conical ones are among those chosen or valued in various cultures. Typically, the shape alteration is carried out on an infant, as the skull is most pliable at this time. In a typical case, headbinding begins approximately a month after birth and continues for about six months.

Elongated skull of a young woman, probably an Alan

Intentional cranial deformation predates written history; it was practiced commonly in a number of cultures that are widely separated geographically and chronologically, and still occurs today in a few areas, including Vanuatu.

The earliest suggested examples were once thought to include Neanderthals and the Proto-Neolithic Homo sapiens component (ninth millennium BC) from Shanidar Cave in Iraq, The view that the Neanderthal skull was artificially deformed, thus representing the oldest example of such practices by tens of thousands of years, has since been argued incorrect by Chech, Grove, Thorne, and Trinkaus, based on new cranial reconstructions in 1999, where the team concluded "we no longer consider that artificial cranial deformation can be inferred for the specimen". It thought elongated skulls found among Neolithic peoples in Southwest Asia were the result of artificial cranial deformation.

The earliest written record of cranial deformation—by Hippocrates, of the Macrocephali or Long-heads, who were named for their practice of cranial modification—dates to 400 BC.

Portrait of Alchon Hun king Khingila, from his coinage, circa 450 AD.

In the Old World, Huns also are known to have practised similar cranial deformation, as were the people known as the Alans. In Late Antiquity (AD 300–600), the East Germanic tribes who were ruled by the Huns, the Gepids, Ostrogoths, Heruli, Rugii, and Burgundians adopted this custom. Among the Lombards, the Burgundians and the Thuringians, this custom seems to have comprised women only. In western Germanic tribes, artificial skull deformations rarely have been found.

The practice of cranial deformation was brought to Bactria and Sogdiana by the Yuezhi, a tribe that created the Kushan Empire. Men with such skulls are depicted in various surviving sculptures and friezes of that time, such as the Kushan prince of Khalchayan.

The Alchon Huns are generally recognized by their elongated skull, a result of artificial skull deformation, which may have represented their "corporate identity". The elongated skulls appears clearly in most of the portaits of rulers in the coinage of the Alkhon Huns, and most visibly on the coinage of Khingila. These elongated skulls, which they obviously displayed with pride, distinguished them from other peoples, such as their predecessors the Kidarites. On their coins, the spectacular skulls came to replace the Sasanian-type crowns which had been current in the coinage of the region.

This practice is also known among other peoples of the steppes, particularly the Huns, as far as Europe.

The Iranian hero Rostam, mythical king of Zabulistan, in his 7th century AD mural at Panjikent. He is represented with an elongated skull, in the fashion of the Alchon Huns.

In the Americas, the Maya, Inca, and certain tribes of North American natives performed the custom. In North America the practice was known, especially among the Chinookan tribes of the Northwest and the Choctaw of the Southeast. The Native American group known as the Flathead Indians, in fact, did not practise head flattening, but were named as such in contrast to other Salishan people who used skull modification to make the head appear rounder. Other tribes, including both Southeastern tribes like the Choctaw and Northwestern tribes like the Chehalis and Nooksack Indians, practiced head flattening by strapping the infant's head to a cradleboard.

The practice of cranial deformation was also practiced by the Lucayan people of the Bahamas and the Taínos of the Caribbean. It was also known among the Aboriginal Australians.

Deformed skulls, Afrasiab, Samarkand, Sogdia, 600-800 AD.

Paracas skulls.

In Africa, the Mangbetu stood out to European explorers because of their elongated heads. Traditionally, babies' heads were wrapped tightly with cloth in order to give them this distinctive appearance. The practice began dying out in the 1950s.

Friedrich Ratzel reported in 1896 that deformation of the skull, both by flattening it behind and elongating it toward the vertex, was found in isolated instances in Tahiti, Samoa, Hawaii, and the Paumotu group, and that it occurred most frequently on Mallicollo in the New Hebrides (today Malakula, Vanuatu), where the skull was squeezed extraordinarily flat.

The custom of binding babies' heads in Europe in the twentieth century, though dying out at the time, was still extant in France, and also found in pockets in western Russia, the Caucasus, and in Scandinavia. The reasons for the shaping of the head varied over time and for different reasons, from aesthetic to pseudoscientific ideas about the brain's ability to hold certain types of thought depending on its shape. In the region of Toulouse (France), these cranial deformations persisted sporadically up until the early twentieth century; however, rather than being intentionally produced as with some earlier European cultures, Toulousian Deformation seemed to have been the unwanted result of an ancient medical practice among the French peasantry known as bandeau, in which a baby's head was tightly wrapped and padded in order to protect it from impact and accident shortly after birth. In fact, many of the early modern observers of the deformation were recorded as pitying these peasant children, whom they believed to have been lowered in intelligence due to the persistence of old European customs.

Deliberate deformity of the skull, "Toulouse deformity", France. The band visible in photograph is used to induce shape change.

Motivations and theories

One modern theory is cranial deformation was likely performed to signify group affiliation, or to demonstrate social status. Such motivations may have played a key role in Maya society, aimed at creating a skull shape that is aesthetically more pleasing or associated with desirable cultural attributes. For example, in the Na'ahai-speaking area of Tomman Island and the south south-western Malakulan (Australasia), a person with an elongated head is thought to be more intelligent, of higher status, and closer to the world of the spirits.

Historically, there have been a number of various theories regarding the motivations for these practices.

It has also been considered possible that the practice of cranial deformation originates from an attempt to emulate those groups of the population in which elongated head shape was a natural condition. The skulls of some Ancient Egyptians are among those identified as often being elongated naturally and macrocephaly may be a familial characteristic. For example, Rivero and Tschudi describe a mummy containing a fetus with an elongated skull, describing it thus:

the same formation [i.e. absence of the signs of artificial pressure] of the head presents itself in children yet unborn; and of this truth we have had convincing proof in the sight of a foetus, enclosed in the womb of a mummy of a pregnant woman, which we found in a cave of Huichay, two leagues from Tarma, and which is, at this moment, in our collection. Professor D'Outrepont, of great Celebrity in the department of obstetrics, has assured us that the foetus is one of seven months' age. It belongs, according to a very clearly defined formation of the cranium, to the tribe of the Huancas. We present the reader with a drawing of this conclusive and interesting proof in opposition to the advocates of mechanical action as the sole and exclusive cause of the phrenological form of the Peruvian race.

P. F. Bellamy makes a similar observation about the two elongated skulls of infants, which were discovered and brought to England by a "Captain Blankley" and handed over to the Museum of the Devon and Cornwall Natural History Society in 1838. According to Bellamy, these skulls belonged to two infants, female and male, "one of which was not more than a few months old, and the other could not be much more than one year." He writes,

It will be manifest from the general contour of these skulls that they are allied to those in the Museum of the College of Surgeons in London, denominated Titicacans. Those adult skulls are very generally considered to be distorted by the effects of pressure; but in opposition to this opinion Dr. Graves has stated that "a careful examination of them has convinced him that their peculiar shape cannot be owing to artificial pressure;" and to corroborate this view, we may remark that the peculiarities are as great in the child as in the adult, and indeed more in the younger than in the elder of the two specimens now produced: and the position is considerably strengthened by the great relative length of the large bones of the cranium; by the direction of the plane of the occipital bone, which is not forced upwards, but occupies a place in the under part of the skull; by the further absence of marks of pressure, there being no elevation of the vertex nor projection of either side; and by the fact of there being no instrument nor mechanical contrivance suited to produce such an alteration of form (as these skulls present) found in connexion with them.