Anthropology and Archaeology: Year In Review 2004


Key developments in 2004 in the area of physical anthropology focused on genetic comparisons between humans and their closest living relative—the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). These comparisons were made possible by the recent release of a rough draft of the whole-genome sequence of the chimpanzee by sequencing centres at Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Broad Institute. In addition, the Japanese-led International Chimpanzee Chromosome 22 Consortium published a high-quality DNA sequence of 33.3 million bases of chromosome 22 in the chimpanzee and compared the sequence with its human counterpart, chromosome 21. The comparison documented nearly 68,000 insertions (gains) or deletions (losses) between the two sequences, and it revealed that 1.44% of the two sequences differed because of single-base substitutions (a value comparable to earlier estimates of 1.24% for the average genomic nucleotide difference between humans and chimpanzees). Among the significant differences between the two chromosomes are various genes that are associated with embryonic development, early brain development, heart development, cell-cycle progression, the peripheral nervous system, collagen formation, and the immune response against various pathogens.

Preliminary results from Celera Genomics’s effort to sequence most of the chimpanzee exons (DNA sequences that are translated into proteins) showed that the proteins involved in amino-acid metabolism were highly selected in human evolution, whereas those correlated with neural development surprisingly were not. The Celera findings, coupled with whole-genome sequence comparisons that yielded evidence for the possible rapid evolution of genes involved in host defense, reinforced the dictum in evolutionary biology that diet and pathogens are the dominant selective forces in the evolution of the vast majority of species, including humans and chimpanzees.

In other studies documenting human-chimpanzee genomic differences, humans were found to have more recombination hotspots (DNA sites prone to breaking and being joined with other DNA), more extensive methylation (especially in brain tissue), and a greater rate of gene loss among olfactory receptor genes. Brain gene-expression profiles between humans and chimpanzees utilizing probes to about 10,000 human genes revealed that approximately 10% of the genes studied differed in their expression in at least one region of the brain. A majority of these genes were more highly expressed (more active) in human than in chimpanzee brains, and, contrary to expectation, no major change in expression pattern occurred in Broca’s area, a part of the brain functionally correlated with the evolutionary acquisition of spoken language in humans. Another study concentrated on the gene-expression profiles of the anterior cingulate cortex from human, chimpanzee, gorilla, and macaque samples. This region of the brain had been associated with human grammar and with vocal calls in nonhuman primates. The study concluded that the chimpanzee gene-expression profile was more like the profile of humans than that of the gorilla and thereby provided another piece of evidence that chimpanzees are the primates most closely related to humans. The chimpanzee lineage showed as much regulatory gene evolution in the anterior cingulate cortex as the human lineage; however, humans exhibited some up-regulated (increased) expression of genes related to aerobic metabolism and neural functions, which suggests that increased neuron activity required increased supplies of energy.

A team of scientists at the University of Pennsylvania found the first molecular difference between human and nonhuman primates that is potentially related to an anatomical difference of major evolutionary significance. The discovery concerned a mutation dated to have occurred approximately 2.4 million years ago in a gene for muscle protein. The gene, MYH 16, encodes the myosin heavy chain, an important protein component of muscle fibre subunits called sarcomeres. The mutation resulted in marked reductions in the size of individual muscle fibres and in entire masticatory muscles such as the temporalis, whose function is to close the jaws. The mutant gene arose from the deletion of two nucleotides, causing a premature “stop” codon, which in turn prevents the synthesis of a normal MYH 16 protein. All monkeys and apes sequenced for this locus had an intact normal copy of the MYH 16 gene and a relatively large amount of MYH 16 protein in their jaw muscles. All persons tested from six geographically diverse human populations possessed only the mutant form of the MYH 16 gene. The authors speculated that the appearance of the smaller jaw muscles in Homo erectus/Homo ergaster by 1.8 million–2 million years ago might have removed an evolutionary constraint on the development of a larger brain. Thus, a small change in a craniofacial muscle gene more than 2 million years ago may have ultimately been responsible for the increased cranial capacity that characterized later hominin (hominid) evolution.

On October 28 Australian and Indonesian scientists published a report of one of the most stunningly unexpected finds in the history of paleoanthropology: the skeleton of a Late Pleistocene female adult hominin that they assigned to a new species of the genus Homo. The fragile partial skeleton was recovered from a limestone cave called Liang Bua on Flores Island in eastern Indonesia. Associated deposits contained stone artifacts, Komodo dragon remains, and the remains of a dwarf species of Stegodon (an extinct elephant). Chronometric dating indicated that the skeleton, together with a premolar of an individual from an older deposit, represented a hominin population that existed from before 38,000 years ago until at least 18,000 years ago. The skeleton (designated as LB1) included a fairly complete skull, right leg, and left innominate (pelvic) bone. The new species to which the scientists assigned LB1 and the premolar was Homo floresiensis. With an estimated stature of 106 cm (about 3.5 ft) and a chimpanzee-sized cranial capacity of 380 cc (23 cu in), LB1 lay outside the range of any other specimen previously placed in the genus Homo. Although these primitive features were reminiscent of australopithecine traits, the facial, dental, and postcranial anatomy exhibited derived features that supported its assignment to the genus Homo. Phylogenetically, it was hypothesized that H. floresiensis was descended from a H. erectus population that became isolated on Flores Island more than 800,000 years ago (as indicated by the presence of ancient stone tools and faunal remains reported in 1998). Thus, LB1 was claimed to be an example of island-endemic dwarfism. The Flores hominins underscored the fact that following the dispersal of Homo out of Africa, much greater morphological variation arose in the genus than had previously been documented.


Eastern Hemisphere

The year 2004 witnessed many exciting discoveries throughout the Old World.

The war in Iraq continued to take an extraordinary toll on archaeological sites in the cradle of civilization. Despite the adoption in 2003 of UN Security Council Resolution 1483, which banned the trade in looted Iraqi antiquities, a lawless environment and weak border controls fomented the continued plundering of archaeological sites. Particularly hard hit were numerous 5,000-year-old Sumerian city-states—among them Umma, Isin, Adab, Zabalam, and Shuruppak—in the southern Iraqi province of Dhi Qar. Further destruction of sites came as a direct result of the war, such as the installation of a U.S. military base atop the remains of the ancient city of Babylon. The collapse of substantial portions of the Babylonian temples of Nabu and Ninmah, which dated to the 6th century bc, was attributed to helicopter activity.

Excavations at Blombos Cave, on the southern tip of Africa, yielded a collection of 41 shell beads that were dated to about 75,000 years ago, 30,000 years before the previous earliest known examples of jewelry. According to Christopher S. Henshilwood of the University of Bergen, Nor., the beads, made of shells from a pea-size gastropod (Nassarius kraussianus, native to South African tidal waters), might have been strung together and worn as either necklaces or bracelets. Traces of red ochre that were found on several beads indicated that either the beads or the surfaces against which they were worn might have been coated with iron-oxide pigment.

In Egypt a Polish team excavating a site not far from the Roman Theatre at Alexandria unearthed 13 lecture halls thought to have been part of that city’s 5th-century ad university—the oldest in the world. Each of the halls, which were identical in size, contained several semicircular rows of stepped benches and an elevated seat at the centre, presumably for a lecturer.

Archaeologists excavating the prehistoric cave site of Klisoura in southern Greece discovered what they believed to be the oldest known clay fireplaces. Dated to between 34,000 and 23,000 years ago, the clay hearths represented a midpoint in the transition from the stone hearths used by earlier peoples and the more fully developed clay kilns discovered at Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic, which dated to between 28,000 and 26,000 years ago.

Archaeological studies of sites associated with Neanderthals led some researchers to suggest that late Neanderthals produced a more sophisticated culture than had been generally believed. (See Sidebar.)

A 3,700-year-old Minoan settlement was found at Miletus in southwestern Turkey, further attesting to the mercantile expansion of a people once thought to have ventured little beyond their Cretan homeland. According to Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier of the German Archaeological Institute in Athens, the Anatolian colony, which was located on the Menderes River, might have been established to export copper, gold, and silver back to Crete. Niemeier and his team uncovered the remains of a courtyard surrounded by storage facilities and what were thought to be cult buildings as well as thousands of pottery and fresco fragments. In Israel archaeologists carrying out rescue excavations in preparation for the installation of a new sewer pipe in southern Jerusalem came upon a pool that had served as a principal reservoir in the city some 2,000 years ago. According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Pool of Siloam was fed by the nearby Gihon Spring.

In Italy an Etruscan road thought to have once linked Pisa, on the Tyrrhenian coast, with the Adriatic port of Spina, three days’ travel away, was unearthed at Capannori, near Lucca. According to archaeologist Michelangelo Zecchini, who found the site during rescue excavations, the 6th-century bc byway had seen significant chariot traffic, evident in the pronounced ruts still visible in the road.

The first Viking burial ground to be found in Britain came to light at Cumwhitton, Cumbria, in northwestern England. The 10th-century cemetery—found with the aid of a metal detector—contained the graves of four men and two women buried with an extraordinary array of weapons, jewelry, fire-making equipment, and horse trappings. Prior to this discovery Viking remains had been found at Ingleby, east of Cumwhitton, but the bodies had been cremated, not buried. The Vikings, who traded with and raided much of Europe between the 9th and the12th century, conquered the British Isles in 1013.

The year 2004 was a banner year for the discovery of ancient Chinese technological advances. Distinctive spiral grooves found on a suite of ornamental jade rings included in elite burials from the Spring and Autumn Period (770–476 bc) appear to have been incised with a complex machine, some 300 years earlier than such devices were thought to have existed, according to Peter J. Lu, a Harvard University graduate student. The jade rings, which vary in size from that of a quarter to that of a bracelet, bear what is known as an Archimedean spiral (although they predate the birth of Archimedes by several centuries), which almost certainly could have been made only by using a machine that linked rotational and linear motion. What was purported to be the earliest known blast blower used to smelt bronze was found in a tomb at Turpan in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China, according to Lu Enguo of Xinjiang’s archaeological research institute. The bronze blowpipe was made during the Warring States period (475–221 bc). Thirty-one tombs, which dated from a period between the late Neolithic Period and the early Bronze Age and contained a wealth of pottery, stone tools, and jade ware, were found in Fujian province, in eastern China. The 4,000-year-old burials, each of which measures about 2 × 0.5 m (6 × 1.6 ft), were a chance find, their location having been exposed when recent drought conditions dried up the Dongzhang Reservoir in Fuqing. A well-preserved 5,000-year-old kiln—complete with kiln chamber, workshop, fireplace, and ash pit—was found during the excavation of a pair of prehistoric village sites at Puchengdian in Henan province. In addition to the kiln, archaeologists recovered numerous artifacts of bronze, stone, bone, shell, and ceramic made between the Neolithic Period and the Song dynasty (960–1279 ad), and they also uncovered building foundations from the Xia dynasty (c. 2205–c. 1766 bc). What was thought to be an imperial tomb group of the Western Zhou dynasty (1046–771 bc) was unearthed at the Zhougong Temple site in northwestern Shaanxi province. According to Lei Xingshan of Beijing University, 12 multichambered tombs had been excavated along with seven chariot pits.

In Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu state, on the southern tip of India, archaeologists uncovered six prehistoric burial urns, or mudhumakkal thaazhi (meaning “large pots for the old” in the local Tamil language). The urns, dated to around 2,800 years ago, measured up to 172 cm (68 in) high and 170 cm in diameter. Some contained smaller earthen pots—quite possibly to hold food offerings—in addition to skeletal remains. It was the second such cache of early burial urns unearthed in the area in recent months.

Western Hemisphere

In 2004 archaeologists reached widespread agreement that the first settlement of the Americas took place almost 20,000 years ago, though exactly when remained controversial. Many experts believed that the first Paleo-Indians traveled south along the coasts of present-day Alaska and British Columbia, moved inland, and then spread rapidly through North America.

Canadian archaeologists recently unearthed the earliest stone spear points ever found in Quebec. Claude Chapdelaine and his colleagues discovered the points, estimated to be between 12,000 and 12,500 years old, on a terrace overlooking Spider Lake in the Lake Mégantic region. The broken artifacts had carefully fluted (thinned) bases and resembled the Folsom-style projectile points known to have been made by Paleo-Indian peoples to the south. The discovery extended the history of human habitation of Quebec back more than 2,000 years.

The impending construction of a telecommunications tower on Tenderfoot Mountain above Gunnison, in southwestern Colorado, led archaeologist Mark Stiger to examine the top of the 2,600-m (8,500-ft) mesa for archaeological sites. Initially he found Folsom points of Paleo-Indian origin. In later surveys he identified at least 15 sites and recovered more than 50 complete or partial spearheads. In 2003 he unearthed a series of rocks and boulders set in a circle. Inside the ring lay Folsom points and some chunks of wall mud. Believing the find to have been a rudimentary house of timber, brush, and clay built between 12,000 and 13,000 years ago, he theorized it was a winter house used over a period of time by an otherwise nomadic Folsom group. This discovery extended the known range of Folsom people, who were traditionally associated with the Great Plains, to the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains.

High-technology science of the 21st century continued to make important contributions to American archaeology. A multidisciplinary team of archaeologists, botanists, and soil scientists used tests for strontium, a trace element, to determine the origin of corn (maize) cobs found in Chaco Canyon, a major centre of Ancestral Pueblo culture in present-day New Mexico. By comparing the strontium content of the cobs with that of soil samples they obtained from adjoining regions, the team found that the cobs came from corn grown in soil more than 80 km (50 mi) away. This finding suggested that at least some of the corn consumed in the canyon was obtained through trade, an important survival strategy in an environment with unpredictable rainfall and frequent droughts. With more analyses, the corn research might show the extent to which the Ancestral Pueblo communities at Chaco Canyon depended on outsiders.

Mound A is the largest of seven Mississippian mounds overlooking the Tennessee River within Shiloh National Military Park, Tennessee. The mound was probably built about 1,000 years ago. In excavating Mound A, archaeologists David Anderson and John Cornelison found that it was constructed in at least five stages, with each successive stage built upon previous construction. When the mound was about half its present size, the builders used red, gray, yellow, and dark brown clays to produce a “tiger-striped” layer. The clays must have come from elsewhere, and their source had yet to be identified. The base of the mound lay about 2.4 m (8 ft) below ground level; the early builders built up a surrounding plaza, perhaps to enhance the appearance of the then-incomplete monument and its precincts.

Fort Sidney Johnston (1864) was the centrepiece of the Confederate defense works at Mobile, Ala. The site of the fort was uncovered by archaeologists working ahead of railroad construction in the area. Although the location of the fort was shown on historic maps, many details of the fort’s structure were unknown. Excavations revealed a large brick wall that was part of an ammunition magazine or shelter and a massive floor of wooden planks preserved in the moist soil.

In the Mayan lowlands of Central America, an important carved stone panel was found in a royal ball court during excavations of one of the most extensive ancient Mayan palaces ever discovered, at Cancuen, Guat. The ornate panel, weighing 91 metric tons (100 short tons), depicts Taj Chan Ank, a ruler of the 8th century ad. He wears a turtle headdress and a jaguar skin as he presides over a ceremony accompanied by two local rulers. Another marker from the same court shows the ruler playing ball against a visiting allied dignitary.

Mayan rule presented a minefield of factional disputes, and every lord—however unimportant—had to be politically adept to survive. A reanalysis of a hieroglyphic stela from Moral-Reforma, a small Mayan capital in present-day Tabasco state, Mexico, showed how a local ruler changed sides. An inscription on the stela depicts lord Hawk Skull being crowned in ad 662, in the presence of Yuknoom the Great, ruler of the great city of Calakmul, which lay a great distance away. Thirty years later he was crowned again, this time in a ritual supervised by Lord Kan Bahlam, ruler of the city of Palenque, a strong rival to Calakmul. Moral-Reforma lay amid rich agricultural lands, which made it a rich prize for ambitious leaders eager to control food sources. In many cases Mayan rulers conquered neighbouring lands, but they also used diplomacy to dominate weaker neighbours, which seemed to have been the case with Moral-Reforma.

Agriculture was an important topic of study for Mayan archaeology. A team of archaeologists headed by T. Patrick Culbert of the University of Arizona located more than 70 new archaeological sites in northern Guatemala’s Petén rain forest. The researchers also investigated whether the dense Mayan farming population of ad 550 to 850 used the area’s seasonal wetlands, known as bajos, during the dry season to increase agricultural productivity. Since bajos covered 40% of the land area, it seemed likely that they were placed under cultivation at a time when the population grew rapidly.

The discovery of a 4,000-year-old gourd fragment from a cemetery in the Norte Chico region, some 190 km (120 mi) north of Lima, Peru, pushed back the date of the earliest-known practice of ancient Andean religion 1,000 years. The incised and painted fragment, radiocarbon dated to about 2250 bc, depicts a fanged creature with splayed feet. Its left arm ends in a snake’s head, and its right arm holds a staff. Andean art experts believed the figure to be the earliest image of the Staff God, a seminal deity of Peru’s Formative Period (1000–200 bc). The Staff God continued to be important in Andean belief for many centuries after that time, and it figured prominently in the divine pantheon of the highland Wari and Tiwanaku states (ad 600–1000).

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