Harnessing Paleohydrologic Modeling to Solve a Prehistoric Mystery.

A riddle arises at the Epipaleolithic and Neolithic sites that dot the lower Jordan Valley. The area has no water resources yet it has long been a focus of inquiry into the transition from mobile hunter-gatherer to sedentary agriculture-based cultures. How then is there such clear evidence of life here, and particularly at such a critical moment in human evolution? Keen to unravel this conundrum, a numerical hydrological model was devised to simulate the groundwater flow field within the Eastern Aquifer of the Judea and Samaria Mountains during the transition from the last glacial to the current interglacial. The model exhibits a range of groundwater flow regimes that prevailed in the past, demonstrating that there was once much larger groundwater discharge at these sites.

Late Pleistocene human genome suggests a local origin for the first farmers of central Anatolia.

Anatolia was home to some of the earliest farming communities. It has been long debated whether a migration of farming groups introduced agriculture to central Anatolia. Here, we report the first genome-wide data from a 15,000-year-old Anatolian hunter-gatherer and from seven Anatolian and Levantine early farmers. We find high genetic continuity (~80-90%) between the hunter-gatherers and early farmers of Anatolia and detect two distinct incoming ancestries: an early Iranian/Caucasus related one and a later one linked to the ancient Levant. Finally, we observe a genetic link between southern Europe and the Near East predating 15,000 years ago. Our results suggest a limited role of human migration in the emergence of agriculture in central Anatolia.

The earliest matches.

Cylindrical objects made usually of fired clay but sometimes of stone were found at the Yarmukian Pottery Neolithic sites of Sha'ar HaGolan and Munhata (first half of the 8(th) millennium BP) in the Jordan Valley. Similar objects have been reported from other Near Eastern Pottery Neolithic sites. Most scholars have interpreted them as cultic objects in the shape of phalli, while others have referred to them in more general terms as "clay pestles," "clay rods," and "cylindrical clay objects." Re-examination of these artifacts leads us to present a new interpretation of their function and to suggest a reconstruction of their technology and mode of use. We suggest that these objects were components of fire drills and consider them the earliest evidence of a complex technology of fire ignition, which incorporates the cylindrical objects in the role of matches.