Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
Volume 3, September 2015, Pages 398–407
A submerged monolith in the Sicilian Channel (central Mediterranean Sea): Evidence for Mesolithic human activity
Emanuele Lodolo, Zvi Ben-Avraham
The ancient geography of the Mediterranean Basin was profoundly changed by the increase in sea level following the Last Glacial Maximum. This global event has led to the retreat of the coastlines, especially in lowland areas and shallow shelves, such as the Sicilian Channel. The NW sector of this shelf, known as Adventure Plateau, is studded by isolated shoals mostly composed of Late Miocene carbonate rocks and by some volcanic edifices. These shoals, until at least the Early Holocene, formed an archipelago of several islands separated by stretches of extremely shallow sea. One of these submerged features – the Pantelleria Vecchia Bank – located 60 km south of Sicily, has been extensively surveyed using geophysical and geological methods. It is composed of two main shoals, connected seaward by a rectilinear ridge which encloses an embayment. Here we present morphological evidence, underwater observations, and results of petrographic analysis of a man-made, 12 m long monolith resting on the sea-floor of the embayment at a water depth of 40 m. It is broken into two parts, and has three regular holes: one at its end which passes through from part to part, the others in two of its sides. The monolith is composed of calcirudites of Late Pleistocene age, as determined from radiocarbon measurements conducted on several shell fragments extracted from the rock samples. The same age and composition characterize the metre-size blocks forming the rectilinear ridge. The rest of the rocks composing the shoals are mostly Tortonian limestones–sandstones, as revealed by their fossil content. Extrapolating ages from the local sea level curve, we infer that seawater inundated the inner lands at 9350 ± 200 year B.P., the upper limit which can be reasonably taken for the site abandonment. This discovery provides evidence for a significant Mesolithic human activity in the Sicilian Channel region.
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Showing posts with label Mesolithic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mesolithic. Show all posts
August 12, 2015
May 01, 2014
Doggerland inhabitants destroyed by tsunami (?)
These two young Mesolithic women from Teviec, Brittany, were brutally murdered. As sea levels rose there may have been increased competition for resourcesPrehistoric North Sea 'Atlantis' hit by 5m tsunami
The wave was generated by a catastrophic subsea landslide off the coast of Norway.
Analysis suggests the tsunami over-ran Doggerland, a low-lying landmass that has since vanished beneath the waves.
"It was abandoned by Mesolithic tribes about 8,200 years ago, which is when the Storegga slide happened," said Dr Jon Hill from Imperial College London.
The wave could have wiped out the last people to occupy this island.
The research has been submitted to the journal Ocean Modelling and is being presented at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna this week.
Dr Hill and his Imperial-based colleagues Gareth Collins, Alexandros Avdis, Stephan Kramer and Matthew Piggott used computer simulations to explore the likely effects of the Norwegian landslide.
He told BBC News: "We were the first ever group to model the Storegga tsunami with Doggerland in place. Previous studies have used the modern bathymetry (ocean depth)."
As such, the study gives the most detailed insight yet into the likely impacts of the huge landslip and its associated tsunami wave on this lost landmass.
September 27, 2013
Reconstructing the Human Past using Ancient and Modern Genomes
A reader alerts me to the availability of this comprehensive summary (pdf) which references a number of new manuscripts. A quite interesting picture which extends the author's previous work on ancient DNA from Sweden. Note the addition of a "a Mesolithic individual from Stora Förvar cave on the Stora Karlsö Island in the Baltic Sea" and more Ajv Neolithic hunters and Go:k Neolithic TRB farmers compared to the Science paper.
Reconstructing the Human Past using Ancient and Modern Genomes
PONTUS SKOGLUND
Abstract
Skoglund, P. 2013. Reconstructing the Human Past using Ancient and Modern Genomes. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 1069. 68 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 978-91-554-8744-7. The study of DNA variation is one of the most promising avenues for learning about the evolutionary and historical past of humans and other species. However, the difficulty associated with obtaining DNA directly from ancient remains have for long kept genomic studies of population history trapped in time; confined to interpreting patterns of modern-day variation without direct historical observations. In this thesis, I outline new approaches for the retrieval, analysis and interpretation of large-scale genomic data from ancient populations, including solutions to overcome problems associated with limited genome coverage, modernday contamination, temporal differences between samples, and post-mortem DNA damage. I integrate large-scale genomic data sets from ancient remains with modern-day variation to trace the human past; from traits targeted by natural selection in the early ancestors of anatomically modern humans, to their descendants' interbreeding with archaic populations in Eurasia and the spread of agriculture in Europe and Africa. By first reconstructing the earliest population diversification events of early modern humans using a novel large-scale genomic data set from Khoe-San populations in southern Africa, I devise a new approach to search for genomic patterns of selective sweeps in ancestral populations and report evidence for skeletal development as a major target of selection during the emergence of early modern humans. Comparing publicly available genomes from archaic humans, I further find that the distribution of archaic human ancestry in Eurasia is more complex than previously thought. In the first direct genomic study of population structure in prehistoric populations, I demonstrate that individuals associated with farming- and hunter-gatherer complexes in Neolithic Scandinavia were strongly genetically differentiated, and direct comparisons with modern-day populations as well as other prehistoric individuals from Southern Europe suggest that this structure originated from Northward expansion of Neolithic farming populations. Finally, I develop a bioinformatic approach for removing modern-day contamination from large-scale ancient DNA sequencing data, and use this method to reconstruct the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of a Siberian Neandertal that is affected by substantial modern-day contamination.
Link (pdf)
Reconstructing the Human Past using Ancient and Modern Genomes
PONTUS SKOGLUND
Abstract
Skoglund, P. 2013. Reconstructing the Human Past using Ancient and Modern Genomes. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 1069. 68 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 978-91-554-8744-7. The study of DNA variation is one of the most promising avenues for learning about the evolutionary and historical past of humans and other species. However, the difficulty associated with obtaining DNA directly from ancient remains have for long kept genomic studies of population history trapped in time; confined to interpreting patterns of modern-day variation without direct historical observations. In this thesis, I outline new approaches for the retrieval, analysis and interpretation of large-scale genomic data from ancient populations, including solutions to overcome problems associated with limited genome coverage, modernday contamination, temporal differences between samples, and post-mortem DNA damage. I integrate large-scale genomic data sets from ancient remains with modern-day variation to trace the human past; from traits targeted by natural selection in the early ancestors of anatomically modern humans, to their descendants' interbreeding with archaic populations in Eurasia and the spread of agriculture in Europe and Africa. By first reconstructing the earliest population diversification events of early modern humans using a novel large-scale genomic data set from Khoe-San populations in southern Africa, I devise a new approach to search for genomic patterns of selective sweeps in ancestral populations and report evidence for skeletal development as a major target of selection during the emergence of early modern humans. Comparing publicly available genomes from archaic humans, I further find that the distribution of archaic human ancestry in Eurasia is more complex than previously thought. In the first direct genomic study of population structure in prehistoric populations, I demonstrate that individuals associated with farming- and hunter-gatherer complexes in Neolithic Scandinavia were strongly genetically differentiated, and direct comparisons with modern-day populations as well as other prehistoric individuals from Southern Europe suggest that this structure originated from Northward expansion of Neolithic farming populations. Finally, I develop a bioinformatic approach for removing modern-day contamination from large-scale ancient DNA sequencing data, and use this method to reconstruct the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of a Siberian Neandertal that is affected by substantial modern-day contamination.
Link (pdf)
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