A team of scientists including researchers from Washington State University has shown for the first time that nicotine residue can be extracted from plaque, also known as "dental calculus," on the teeth of ancient tobacco users.

This is a 1945 picture of a Yokuts Native American woman smoking a pipe [Credit: Clifford Relander]

Their research provides a new method for determining who was consuming tobacco in the ancient world and could help trace the use of tobacco and other intoxicating plants further back into prehistory.

"The ability to identify nicotine and other plant-based drugs in ancient dental plaque could help us answer longstanding questions about the consumption of intoxicants by ancient humans," said Shannon Tushingham, a WSU assistant professor of anthropology and co-author of a new study on the research in Journal of Archaeological Science Reports. "For example, it could help us determine whether all members of society used tobacco, or only adults, or only males or females."

A new source of information

Tracing the ancient spread of tobacco in the Americas has traditionally relied on the presence of pipes, charred tobacco seeds and the analysis of hair and fecal matter. However, these items are rare in the archeological record and are hard to link to particular individuals. As a result, tobacco use has been difficult to document archeologically.

On the other hand, dental plaque adheres to the surfaces of teeth and mineralizes over time, preserving a wide range of substances that are in the mouth. It is easy to link to particular individuals because it can be removed directly from teeth.

Nevertheless, dental plaque was largely ignored by archaeologists until recently.

However, using modern and highly sensitive instrumentation, scientists have found they can detect and characterize trace amounts of a wide variety of compounds, including proteins, bacterial DNA, starch grains and other plant fibers in dental plaque.

Because nicotine is detectable in the dental plaque of contemporary smokers, Tushingham and her collaborators wanted to find out if it also preserved in plaque taken from people who lived long ago.

She and David Gang, a professor in the WSU Institute of Biological Chemistry, Korey Brownstein, a graduate student in the WSU Molecular Plant Sciences Program, and Jelmer Eerkens, an anthropologist at the University of California, Davis, collaborated with members from the Ohlone tribe in San Francisco Bay to extract plaque from the teeth of eight individuals, buried between 6,000 and 300 years ago, and analyze it for nicotine.

Using ordinary dental picks, Eerkens and his team at UC Davis extracted the dental plaque from the ancient teeth and then sent it to Tushingham and Gang's labs at WSU for analysis. The WSU researchers used liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to test the samples for nicotine and other plant-based drugs like caffeine and atropine, a muscle-relaxant.

Among the samples they analyzed, two tested positive for nicotine, demonstrating for the first time that the drug can survive in detectable amounts in ancient plaque. One of these individuals, an adult man, was also buried with a pipe. A surprise came from the molar of an older woman, which also tested positive for nicotine.

"While we can't make any broad conclusions with this single case, her age, sex, and use of tobacco is intriguing," Eerkens said. "She was probably past child-bearing age, and likely a grandmother. This supports recent research suggesting that younger adult women in traditional societies avoid plant toxins like nicotine to protect infants from harmful biochemicals, but that older women can consume these intoxicants as needed or desired."

While the researchers did not detect evidence of any other plant-based drugs in this particular study, they believe dental plaque could be used help trace the use and spread of other intoxicants as well.

"We think a wide variety of plant-based, intoxicating chemicals could be detected in ancient dental plaque," Brownstein said. "It really opens up a lot of interesting avenues of discovery."

Author: Will Ferguson | Source: Washington State University [February 27, 2018]

New genetic research reveals the complex demographic history of Vanuatu, explaining how Austronesian languages were retained throughout its history despite near-total replacement of early Austronesian-Lapita with Papuan ancestry

Young men in canoes in Northwest Malakula, Vanuatu [Credit: Russell Gray & Heidi Colleran]

The study, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution and led by a multidisciplinary research team at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH) together with researchers in France, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Vanuatu, reveals that migrations of people from the Bismarck Archipelago in Oceania to the previously settled islands of the Pacific began as early as 2,500 years ago, much earlier than previously thought. The Remote Oceanian island nation of Vanuatu is the gateway to the rest of the Pacific and understanding its demographic history is critical to uncovering that of the wider region.

The earliest inhabitants of Vanuatu, arriving about 3,000 years ago, were the Lapita peoples who spoke a form of Austronesian language and who had largely East Asian genetic ancestry. But Vanuatu's contemporary population has largely Near Oceanian heritage, showing that over time the genetic ancestry of the early inhabitants was mostly replaced by that of Bismarck Archipelago migrants, who began arriving very soon after initial settlement. Yet the original Austronesian language persisted and over 120 descendant languages continue to be spoken today, making Vanuatu the per capita most linguistically diverse place on Earth.

Vanuatu therefore presents an unprecedented case, where a population's genetic ancestry but not its languages were replaced. Through analyses of new ancient and modern genome-wide data, the researchers show that rather than occurring in one wave, the genetic replacement was long and complex, likely the result of a sustained long-distance contact between Near and Remote Oceania. This provides demographic support for a model from historical linguistics, in which the initial Austronesian language of Vanuatu survived by being continually adopted by incoming Papuan migrants.

The Austronesian Expansion, which began around 5,500 years ago likely in modern-day Taiwan, was the most geographically extensive dispersal of farming peoples in prehistory, ultimately carrying people as far west as Madagascar and all the way east to Rapa Nui. These seafaring Neolithic people initially expanded out across Island Southeast Asia, carrying farming technology and a major branch of the Austronesian language family, eventually reaching Near Oceania where they encountered the indigenous Papuan peoples of New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago.

Dr. Frédérique Valentin excavating at Uripiv Island, Malakula, Vanuatu [Credit: Stuart Bedford]

The initial settlement east beyond the Solomon Islands and out into Remote Oceania only began around 3,000 years ago, with Austronesian-speaking groups associated with the Lapita pottery culture rapidly expanding east out to Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji and the islands of Western Polynesia. A previous ancient DNA study of Lapita burial sites has shown that these earliest inhabitants had East Asian ancestry with negligible evidence of Papuan genetic admixture. But the present-day genetic make-up of Remote Oceania suggests at least some degree of Papuan ancestry, meaning there must have been subsequent Papuan migration and admixture into the Pacific from Near Oceania.

In order to understand this previously undescribed migration, a multidisciplinary team of researchers brought together different lines of evidence from the fields of genetics, archaeology and linguistics. They generated genome-wide data from the bones and teeth of 19 ancient individuals from across Vanuatu, Tonga, French Polynesia and the Solomon Islands, a significant addition to the ancient DNA record in a region whose environmental conditions generally leads to poor ancient DNA preservation.

As co-lead author Kathrin Nägele of the MPI-SHH says, "The identification of the petrous bone, which has recently been shown to provide fantastic aDNA preservation, has been a real game changer for such regions that were previously considered to be almost inaccessible." The ancient DNA was complemented by new contemporary genome-wide data from 27 present-day inhabitants of Vanuatu, collected as part of a long-term linguistic and anthropological fieldwork project run by co-authors Professor Russell Gray and Dr. Heidi Colleran of the MPI-SHH.

The ancient DNA provided direct evidence that Papuan people began arriving in Vanuatu soon after initial settlement by Austronesians. "We found a genetically Papuan-related individual dating to around 2,500 years ago in Vanuatu, far earlier than had been previously estimated using only modern genetic data," explains co-lead author Dr. Cosimo Posth, also of the MPI-SHH. The researchers were able to show that the ancestry of the initial Austronesian inhabitants of Vanuatu has been largely replaced by ancestry from Papuan peoples coming from the Bismarck Archipelago.

Maps showing the migrations in the area, including, in the final map, the migrations  revealed by the current study [Credit: Hans Sell, adapted from Skoglund et al. Genomic insights into the peopling of the Southwest Pacific. Nature (2016)]

But this genetic replacement was not straightforward, as Dr. Posth says, "Our analyses show that this replacement did not occur in a one-time mass migration event but rather happened incrementally over time, suggesting an enduring long-distance network between groups in Near and Remote Oceania." The authors also directly described ancient individuals with sex-biased admixture, where Papuan males intermixed with Austronesian women, as long assumed based on analyses of the modern genetic make-up of the South Pacific.

Yet despite this genetic replacement, the people of present-day Vanuatu continue to speak languages descended from those spoken by the initial Austronesian inhabitants rather than any Papuan language of the incoming migrants. As Professor Gray, Director of the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution at the MPI-SHH, says, "Population replacement with language continuity is extremely rare -- if not unprecedented -- in human history.

The linguist Bob Blust has long argued for a model in which a separate Papuan expansion reaches Vanuatu soon after initial Austronesian settlement, with the initial, and likely undifferentiated, Austronesian language surviving as a lingua franca for diverse Papuan migrant groups." Dr. Adam Powell, senior author of the study and also of the MPI-SHH, continues, "The demographic history suggested by our ancient DNA analyses provides really strong support for this historical linguistic model, with the early arrival and complex, incremental process of genetic replacement by people from the Bismarck Archipelago. This provides a compelling explanation for the continuity of Austronesian languages despite the almost complete replacement of the initial genetic ancestry of Vanuatu."

The study in particular highlights the importance of interdisciplinary work and the value that multiple lines of evidence can have in deepening our understanding of human history. As Professor Johannes Krause, a senior author and Director of the Department of Archaeogenetics at the MPI-SHH, explains, "This multidisciplinary work has begun to uncover the complex, localized demographic processes that drove the initial colonization of the wider South Pacific and formed the enduring cultural and linguistic spheres that continue to shape the Pacific today." Ongoing engagement with local communities in Vanuatu, as well as with the Vanuatu Cultural Center, has been critical to this success.

As Dr. Colleran points out, "One strength of this study is the degree to which we are collaborating with communities in Vanuatu who have a real stake in these results and who generously volunteered their data to help answer these questions. We will be back in the field very soon to share the results with those communities and to hear their thoughts on the whole process." The progress of this continuing fieldwork can be followed on the Nature Ecology & Evolution Community website.

Source: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History [February 27, 2018]

A thousand-year-old tooth has provided genetic evidence that the so-called "Taíno," the first indigenous Americans to feel the full impact of European colonisation after Columbus arrived in the New World, still have living descendants in the Caribbean today.

First encounter. Columbus landing in the New World [Credit: Library of Congress]

Researchers were able to use the tooth of a woman found in a cave on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas to sequence the first complete ancient human genome from the Caribbean. The woman lived at some point between the 8th and 10th centuries, at least 500 years before Columbus made landfall in the Bahamas.

The results provide unprecedented insights into the genetic makeup of the Taíno -- a label commonly used to describe the indigenous people of that region. This includes the first clear evidence that there has been some degree of continuity between the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean and contemporary communities living in the region today.

Such a link had previously been suggested by other studies based on modern DNA. None of these, however, was able to draw on an ancient genome. The new research finally provides concrete proof that indigenous ancestry in the region has survived to the present day.

Comparing the ancient Bahamian genome to those of contemporary Puerto Ricans, the researchers found that they were more closely related to the ancient Taíno than any other indigenous group in the Americas. However, they argue that this characteristic is unlikely to be exclusive to Puerto Ricans alone and are convinced that future studies will reveal similar genetic legacies in other Caribbean communities.

The findings are likely to be especially significant for people in the Caribbean and elsewhere who have long claimed indigenous Taíno heritage, despite some historical narratives that inaccurately brand them "extinct." Such misrepresentations have been heavily criticised by historians and archaeologists, as well as by descendant communities themselves, but until now they lacked clear genetic evidence to support their case.

The study was carried out by an international team of researchers led by Dr Hannes Schroeder and Professor Eske Willerslev within the framework of the ERC Synergy project NEXUS1492. The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Lead author Schroeder, from the University of Copenhagen who carried out the research as part of the NEXUS1492 project, said: "It's a fascinating finding. Many history books will tell you that the indigenous population of the Caribbean was all but wiped out, but people who self-identify as Taíno have always argued for continuity. Now we know they were right all along: there has been some form of genetic continuity in the Caribbean."

Willerslev, who has dual posts at St John's College, University of Cambridge, and the University of Copenhagen, said: "It has always been clear that people in the Caribbean have Native American ancestry, but because the region has such a complex history of migration, it was difficult to prove whether this was specifically indigenous to the Caribbean, until now."

The researchers were also able to trace the genetic origins of the indigenous Caribbean islanders, showing that they were most closely related to Arawakan-speaking groups who live in parts of northern South America today. This suggests that the origins of at least some the people who migrated to the Caribbean can be traced back to the Amazon and Orinoco Basins, where the Arawakan languages developed.

The Caribbean was one of the last parts of the Americas to be populated by humans starting around 8,000 years ago. By the time of European colonization, the islands were a complex patchwork of different societies and cultures. The "Taíno" culture was dominant in the Greater, and parts of the Lesser Antilles, as well as the Bahamas, where the people were known as Lucayans.

To trace the genetic origins of the Lucayans the researchers compared the ancient Bahamian genome with previously published genome-wide datasets for over 40 present-day indigenous groups from the Americas. In addition, they looked for traces of indigenous Caribbean ancestry in present-day populations by comparing the ancient genome with those of 104 contemporary Puerto Ricans included in the 1000 Genomes Project. The 10-15% of Native American ancestry in this group was shown to be closely related to the ancient Bahamian genome.

Jorge Estevez, a Taíno descendant who works at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York and assisted the project team, said that as a boy growing up in the United States, he was told stories about his Taíno ancestors at home, but at school was taught that the same ancestors had died out. "I wish my grandmother were alive today so that I could confirm to her what she already knew," he added. "It shows that the true story is one of assimilation, certainly, but not total extinction. I am genuinely grateful to the researchers. Although this may have been a matter of scientific inquiry for them, to us, the descendants, it is truly liberating and uplifting."

Although indigenous Caribbean communities were island-based, the researchers found very little genomic evidence of isolation or inbreeding in the ancient genome. This reinforces earlier genetic research led by Willerslev, which suggests that early human communities developed surprisingly extensive social networks, long before the term had digital connotations. It also echoes ongoing work by researchers at the Faculty of Archaeology in Leiden and others indicating the connectedness of indigenous Caribbean communities.

Professor Corinne Hofman from Leiden University and PI of the NEXUS1492 project, said: "Archaeological evidence has always suggested that large numbers of people who settled the Caribbean originated in South America, and that they maintained social networks that extended far beyond the local scale. Historically, it has been difficult to back this up with ancient DNA because of poor preservation, but this study demonstrates that it is possible to obtain ancient genomes from the Caribbean and that opens up fascinating new possibilities for research."

Source: University of Cambridge [February 19, 2018]

A previously unknown language has been found in the Malay Peninsula by linguists from Lund University in Sweden. The language has been given the name Jedek.

Jedek is an Austroasiatic language spoken by 280 people in northern Peninsular Malaysia [Credit: Niclas Burenhult]

"Documentation of endangered minority languages such as Jedek is important, as it provides new insights into human cognition and culture," says Joanne Yager, doctoral student at Lund University.

"Jedek is not a language spoken by an unknown tribe in the jungle, as you would perhaps imagine, but in a village previously studied by anthropologists. As linguists, we had a different set of questions and found something that the anthropologists missed," says Niclas Burenhult, Associate Professor of General Linguistics at Lund University, who collected the first linguistic material from Jedek speakers.

The language is an Aslian variety within the Austroasiatic language family and is spoken by 280 people who are settled hunter-gatherers in northern Peninsular Malaysia.

The researchers discovered the language during a language documentation project, Tongues of the Semang, in which they visited several villages to collect language data from different groups who speak Aslian languages.

The discovery of Jedek was made while they were studying the Jahai language in the same area.

"We realised that a large part of the village spoke a different language. They used words, phonemes and grammatical structures that are not used in Jahai. Some of these words suggested a link with other Aslian languages spoken far away in other parts of the Malay Peninsula," says Joanne Yager.


The community in which Jedek is spoken is more gender-equal than Western societies, there is almost no interpersonal violence, they consciously encourage their children not to compete, and there are no laws or courts. There are no professions either, rather everyone has the skills that are required in a hunter-gatherer community. This way of life is reflected in the language. There are no indigenous words for occupations or for courts of law, and no indigenous verbs to denote ownership such as borrow, steal, buy or sell, but there is a rich vocabulary of words to describe exchanging and sharing.

"There are so many ways to be human, but all too often our own modern and mainly urban societies are used as the yardstick for what is universally human. We have so much to learn, not least about ourselves, from the largely undocumented and endangered linguistic and cultural riches that are out there," states Niclas Burenhult.

Joanne Yager and Niclas Burenhult have spent long periods of time working with speakers of Aslian languages. This is necessary in order to systematically study, observe and document the languages -- it is not enough to simply conduct interviews.

"This work depends on devoted field workers with a strong passion for discovering more about linguistic diversity," explains Niclas Burenhult.

An estimated 6,000 languages are currently spoken in the world. About 80 per cent of the world's population speak one of the major world languages, while approximately 20 per cent speak one of the 3 600 smaller languages. Researchers believe that about half of the world's languages will be extinct 100 years from now.

The study is published in Linguistic Typology.

Source: Lund University [February 06, 2018]

When it comes to naming colors, most people do so with ease. But, for odors, it's much harder to find the words. One notable exception to this rule is found among the Jahai people, a group of hunter-gatherers living in the Malay Peninsula. An earlier study showed that, for them, odors are just as easy to name as colors. Now a new study reported in Current Biology suggests that the Jahai's special way with smell is related to their hunting and gathering lifestyle.

Credit: Radboud University

"There has been a long-standing consensus that 'smell is the mute sense, the one without words,' and decades of research with English-speaking participants seemed to confirm this," says Asifa Majid of Radboud University in the Netherlands. "But, the Jahai of the Malay Peninsula are much better at naming odors than their English-speaking peers. This, of course, raises the question of where this difference originates."

To find out whether it was the Jahai who have an unusually keen ability with odors or whether English speakers are simply lacking, Majid and Nicole Kruspe at Lund University in Sweden looked to two related, but previously unstudied, groups of people in the tropical rainforest of the Malay Peninsula: the hunter-gatherer Semaq Beri and the non-hunter-gatherer Semelai. The Semelai are traditionally horticulturalists, combining shifting rice cultivation with the collection of forest products for trade.

The Semaq Beri and Semelai not only live in a similar environment; they also speak closely related languages. The question was: how were they at naming odors?

"If ease of olfactory naming is related to cultural practices, then we would expect the Semaq Beri to behave like the Jahai and name odors as easily as they do colors, whereas the Semelai should pattern differently," the researchers wrote. And, that's exactly what they found.

A Semelai speaker with Nicole Kruspe discussing odor [Credit: Noah Azman]

Majid and Kruspe tested the color- and odor-naming abilities of 20 Semaq Beri and 21 Semelai people. Sixteen odors were used: orange, leather, cinnamon, peppermint, banana, lemon, licorice, turpentine, garlic, coffee, apple, clove, pineapple, rose, anise, and fish. For the color task, study participants saw 80 Munsell color chips, sampling 20 equally spaced hues at four degrees of brightness. Kruspe tested participants in their native language by simply asking, "What smell is this?" or "What color is this?"

The results were clear. The hunter-gatherer Semaq Beri performed on those tests just like the hunter-gatherer Jahai, naming odors and colors with equal ease. The non-hunter-gatherer Semelai, on the other hand, performed like English speakers. For them, odors were difficult to name.

The results suggest that the downgrading in importance of smells relative to other sensory inputs is a recent consequence of cultural adaption, the researchers say. "Hunter-gatherers' olfaction is superior, while settled peoples' olfactory cognition is diminished," Majid says.

They say the findings challenge the notion that differences in neuroarchitecture alone underlie differences in olfaction, suggesting instead that cultural variation may play a more prominent role. They also raise a number of interesting questions: "Do hunter-gatherers in other parts of the world also show the same boost to olfactory naming?" Majid asks. "Are other aspects of olfactory cognition also superior in hunter-gatherers," for example, the ability to differentiate one odor from another? "Finally, how do these cultural differences interact with the biological infrastructure for smell?" She says it will be important to learn whether these groups of people show underlying genetic differences related to the sense of smell.

Source: Cell Press [January 18, 2018]

Tropical forests span a huge area, harbor a wide diversity of species, and are important to water and nutrient cycling on a planet scale. But in ancient Amazonia, over 500 years ago, clearing tropical forests was a way of survival to provide land for families to farm and villages to prosper. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire used high-tech tools to more precisely view where these cleared sites were and how much lasting impact they had on the rainforest in the Amazon Basin in South America.

Map developed using satellite imagery and spatial modeling showing estimated past human impact  on the Amazonian forest [Credit: Michael Palace/UNH]

"One of the key mysteries in this area of the world is that no one knows how many people lived in Amazonia before European contact," said Michael Palace, an associate professor in the Earth Sciences Department and Earth Systems Research Center at UNH. "Once the Europeans arrived, indigenous populations were devastated due to disease, slavery and displacement so it's often hard to determine lasting impact. It is important to understand the resilience or fragility of these forests to past human disturbance, which allows for appropriate planning on the use of natural resources."

One of the few indicators of human settlements are the terra preta, or Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs). These are black, human-made soils that are enriched by materials left behind from past societies, pottery remnants, charcoal and other artifacts frequently associated with human origin. There is very little rock and metal in that part of the world (a former ocean bottom), and wood, bone and other organic materials decay quickly in the humid tropics.

In their study, recently published in the journal Ecosphere, the researchers used imagery from NASA's terra satellite, MODIS, and geospatial modeling to predict the ADE probability across six million square kilometers of the Amazonia. They found that biomass (primarily weight of trees in forests), tree height, and tree cover were all lower at ADE sites than adjacent random non-ADE locations. The ADE sites were also more susceptible to drought.

Indigenous people most likely used slash-and-burn techniques to clear the forests so the ADE sites may have been pre-selected due to the propensity for drought or intensity of dry seasons. Researchers also observed differences in spectral properties (reflective light) between ADE and non-ADE sites that are likely driven by forest structure and tree species, indicating that remnant forests are still showing impacts from past human settlement patterns.

Researchers further explain that the high spatial heterogeneity in ADE sites across the Amazon suggests that pre-Columbian occupation by indigenous people was complex and varied substantially across this ecologically diverse region. But they speculate that because of their proximity to the rivers, ADEs may have become areas of interest for other groups to settle and reoccupy, further impacting the forests and vegetation in the ADE areas.

Source: University of New Hampshire [January 18, 2018]

Yukon archaeologist Greg Hare says it was just luck that led him in 2016 to find a nearly 1,000-year-old hunting artifact, half exposed in a remote patch of ice.

A unique barbed antler arrow point with a copper end blade was recovered from a melting ice patch in July 2016,  within the traditional territory of Carcross/Tagish First Nation [Credit: Yukon Government]

Recent radiocarbon dating confirms that the arrow blade point is one of the earliest examples of copper metallurgy ever found in Yukon.

Hare was travelling with a documentary film crew over the ice patches near Carcross, Yukon, in July 2016 when they spotted some caribou on a hillside. Hare had been showing the crew some of sites where he and other archaeologists have been finding ancient First Nations hunting weapons over the last 20 years.

They were flying in two helicopters, and Hare's helicopter decided to land to get out of the film crew's shot. While waiting on the ice patch, Hare and his team spotted an antler arrow point half buried in the ice. It looked like it had just been fired from a bow. They pulled it out and discovered a copper end blade attached.

Yukon archaeologist Greg Hare and his team on the ice patches near Carcross  [Credit: Yukon Government]

"It was so fortuitous that those caribou were on that patch, that the television crew wanted to film that, that we landed at this little scruffy patch," said Hare. "We would have never have stopped there any other time because that ice patch melted right away."

In fact, Hare said he went back a few weeks later to look for more artifacts and says the ice patch had completely melted leaving nothing but some semi-frozen caribou dung.

Early bow and arrow technology

The arrow point end blade proved to be quite a find, though. "This is one of the oldest copper elements that we ever found in the Yukon," Hare said.

The antler arrow point was found sticking out of the ice, in almost pristine condition  [Credit: Yukon Government]

For thousands of years, caribou took refuge in the summer up high on the alpine ice patches to escape the heat and swarms of harassing insects. That made those ice patches good areas for ancient hunters to get close to the caribou.

Some weapons would miss their marks and disappear in the snow and ice, over time building a treasure trove of artifacts now revealed by the melting ice. Archaeologists have found ancient hunting tools made of wood, antler bone, and now copper.

"The significant part of the story is that [the arrowhead] is so old, and it is such a beautiful expression of copper metallurgy," Hare said. "Copper only first shows up in the Yukon about a thousand years ago and this is almost at the beginning of that technology."

"That technology" refers to the bow and arrow, which replaced the atlatl (also known as a throwing dart) around 1,100 years ago as the main weapon used by Indigenous hunters.

"Most people when they think of First Nation hunters, they associate with bow and arrow hunting. But in fact, for almost 8,000 years First Nation hunters in the Yukon were using the throwing darts, the Atliatli," said Hare. "Then all of a sudden there was quite a sharp change in the technology, for whatever reason. People stopped using the throwing dart and they started using bow and arrow."

A number of atlatl darts found over the last 20 years by archaeologists working in Yukon ice patches. An atlatl is  a throwing dart used with a paddle. Indigenous hunters typically used them to hunt until about 1,100 years ago  [Credit: Yukon Government]

Recent radiocarbon dating of the copper arrowhead pegs it at 936 years old, meaning it would be among the earliest examples of bow and arrow technology ever recovered in Yukon.

Hare says it's made of a copper nugget and is 99.9 percent pure. It would have been locally found, he said.

"It is not a European alloy. It is an entirely copper-made, from a placer nugget of copper that would have been recovered from one of the creeks in southwest Yukon," he said.

'Links to the past'

The Carcross/Tagish First Nation's heritage consultant Jennifer Herkes says the find supports the oral traditional knowledge elders have passed on.

The arrowhead has been radiocarbon dated to 936 years old [Credit: Mike Rudyk]

"They act as kind of a physical tangible evidence of the links to the past. They support all of the traditional knowledge and the stories the elders share about the connection to the land and the connection to their neighbours," she said.

Hare says he can only guess how long it took the hunter to make the copper arrowhead.

"When you look at how much work that went into making this arrow point, it probably represents two weeks of work on somebody's part," he said. "So my question at the time we found it was, how long did that person spend looking for it, after they lost it. I think they would have looked for two weeks."

He says it would have been a significant loss at the time for the hunter, but lucky for the caribou.

Author: Mike Rudyk | Source: CBC News [January 13, 2018]

Almost a year after it began, archaeologists continue excavating a large site in downtown Napa – one that could have been home to Native Americans as long as 2,000 years ago.

Credit: Napa Valley Register

Located at the corner of First Street and Silverado Trail, the 11-acre parcel is the planned home of a 351-room luxury hotel and resort estimated to cost $200 million.

Because the dig is occurring at a heavily traveled intersection on the edge of downtown Napa, the project has provoked considerable public interest.

Kevin Teague, a local attorney counseling the site owner, Palm Hill Inc., said excavation was going well.

The team is almost complete with the required excavation work, which must be completed before the owners can proceed with construction of the hotel, he wrote in an email statement on Friday.

“This portion of the site was identified years ago, well before the original hotel was approved, as an archaeological site,” Teague noted. “Because of this, our federal and other permits required the work you see out there to be completed prior to the excavation work for the parking and utilities.”

While the property is secured by locked chain link fencing and other security measures, images taken in December above the area by a drone reveal an extensive grouping of pits and trenches.

After reviewing the drone photographs, Christopher D. Dore, a registered professional archaeologist with Heritage Business International, described the excavation work as extensive.

“This is a major project,” said Dore.

Dore, who lives in Arizona, is not working on the Napa excavation, but he agreed to share some observations about what is likely happening at the property.

“Here you have a large archaeological site that is on the banks of the Napa River,” he said. “It’s probably a village site or habitation site,” so archaeologists would expect to find remains of fireplaces or hearths, and possibly human remains.

“This is an important, significant site,” Dore said.

Dore estimated 10 to 30 archaeologists could be working on the site, in addition to one or more Native American monitors.

Credit: Napa Valley Register

Based on tire tracks used by machinery and the tools seen at the site, Dore believes the archaeologists on the property are removing a lot of dirt over a very large area.

“I have no idea what they are finding,” he said. But, from the scale of it – and because workers have been on the site since April – “It’s not your average project.”

“This is not a small site,” said Alexandra Greenwald, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Evolution and Medicine at Arizona State University, who also reviewed the drone images.

Greenwald, who is not associated with this project, said it would not be surprising to find evidence of artifacts and occupation in such an area.

“People lived there,” including Native Americans, “and for the same reasons Napans live there now,” she said. “It was a nice place.”

According to Greenwald, artifacts typically found at such a site in Napa Valley could include animal bones, shells or byproducts of people making stone or other tools.

Greenwald said the materials that stone tools were made of can help illuminate the trade relationships residents had. Shaking dirt through screens can reveal the kind of foods people ate. Rocks cracked from being used for cooking in hearths are also common artifacts.

Teague explained that any artifact identification will occur following completion of the excavation work.

“It would not be appropriate for me or ownership as to speculate on what may have been there until the professionals have completed their analytical work,” the agencies complete their reviews and “the Mishewal-Wappo Tribe is in agreement,” he said. “This is all normal course for this type of project.”

During a phone call on Thursday, Scott Gabaldon, chairman of the Mishewal-Wappo Tribe, declined to be interviewed for this story. The Mishewal-Wappo are an indigenous people of Napa Valley and Northern California.

To keep track of where artifacts are found, holes are typically dug in one-meter square increments using a grid system, said Greenwald.

The long trenches seen in the photos represent a common way to “sample” an area. If it is too time- or labor-intensive to excavate huge squares of earth, long trenches can be used to test larger areas instead, she said.

Trenching might also be done because these archaeologists have been informed where a road or building will be created, so therefore that space would need to be excavated for any artifacts that might be affected by the development.

Credit: Napa Valley Register

The company doing the archaeology in Napa has not been identified, but there are approximately 1,300 such companies in the U.S., and hundreds in California that do such work, Dore noted.

Security is a typical concern at a project like this, said the archaeologists.

To prevent looting or disturbing the Napa site, security fencing and “no trespassing” signs have been installed.

“It’s important not to interfere with archaeology sites, the archaeologists or the Native American descendants who are working there,” Greenwald said. “These are trained professionals who are doing their jobs.”

Dore said while the artifacts that are eventually identified may seem “mundane” to the average person, “securing that and keeping people from looting is important.”

The archaeologist explained that the information gained from the excavation doesn’t come directly from the artifact. “It really comes from the relationship of that artifact to other artifacts and the setting where it was found.”

“It’s a huge puzzle for us,” said Dore.

If that setting is disturbed, the context is lost.

Cultural sensitivity is another key element of such a project.

“For many native groups it is a horrible thing if their ancestors’ remains are being exhumed,” noted Greenwald.

Even if remains are not identified, “It’s important to respect the wishes and beliefs of the Native American community you are working with.” Such work shouldn’t become a public spectacle, she said.

This excavation could be “very personal and sensitive,” Dore said.

In addition, everyone involved at the excavation has a different interest, he noted. That includes the developer, archaeologists, the scientific community and Native American representatives.

“Often times those interests can conflict,” or become emotional, he pointed out.

According to the California Department of Parks and Recreation, several state and federal laws protect Native American historic and cultural resources from vandalism and looting.

Credit: Napa Valley Register

The California’s Native American Heritage Commission (NAHC) stipulates that when developers assess the environmental impact of their projects, they must consider historical resources as an aspect of the environment in accordance with California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) guidelines.

These cultural features can include Native American graves and artifacts; traditional cultural landscapes; natural resources used for food, ceremonies or traditional crafts; and places that have special significance.

When projects are proposed in areas where Native American cultural features are likely to be affected, one way to avoid damaging them is to have a Native American monitor present.

If Native American artifacts are found and are believed to be burial items, the NAHC or local law enforcement should be contacted. If remains are found, the county coroner would be contacted.

“I’m not aware they’ve found any human remains there,” Capt. Steve Blower of the Napa County Sheriff’s Office said Friday.

While some people may feel the site should remain undisturbed, the reality is that it is private property, said Dore. Even though artifacts may have been found, once the landowner fulfills CEQA and other requirements, such developments typically go forward.

Dore said that sometimes archaeologists involved with such a project are asked by the developer not to discuss the work with outsiders.

After the excavation and study is done, a report will be deposited in the California Historical Resources Information System which is an information management system run by the state. However, “There are probably thousands of hours of analysis and writing that will need to be done,” he estimated. The report itself could take months or even years to file.

The city first approved the luxury hotel in 2008, clearing the way for a five-star lodging with a restaurant, spa, boutique shopping and underground valet parking. The project was to have been a Ritz-Carlton.

But the Great Recession cut off financing and stalled the project, which has passed through several ownership changes since.

Palm Hill, the current owner, acquired the property in 2013 from River House Land Co.

Dore said that this kind of excavation and dig may seem unusual to Napans, but archaeology “isn’t just big pyramids in Egypt.”

In fact, there’s a good chance that artifacts can be found on the property of anyone who lives in the area, he said.

“There is a very rich archaeological record” in our area, Dore said.

“It’s underneath people’s feet every day. The evidence of our past is pretty much everywhere.”

As to the next steps for the hotel development, Teague said, “We hope to complete our infrastructure permits with the city and various agencies so the major portion of the hotel construction can get started this spring.”

Author: Jennifer Huffman | Source: Napa Valley Register [January 09, 2018]