Estimating adult age categories in commingled skeletons with Transition Analysis 3.

OBJECTIVES: We estimate adult age frequencies from Unar 1 and Unar 2, two late Umm an-Nar (2400-2100 BCE) tombs in the modern-day Emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. These collective tombs each contained hundreds of skeletons in commingled, fragmented, and variably cremated states. Previous studies placed the vast majority of this mortuary community in a generalized "adult" category, as have most analyses of similar tombs from this period. We sought to test how adult age estimation methods compare in identifying young, middle, and old-age individuals in commingled assemblages. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We employed Transition Analysis 3 (TA3) and traditional age estimation methods to generate adult age frequencies for each tomb. We compared these frequencies between tomb contexts as well as by method. RESULTS: Unar 1 and Unar 2 had similar adult age frequencies within each method, but TA3 age frequencies included significantly more middle and older adult individuals than those generated by traditional methods. DISCUSSION: These results support findings of earlier iterations of transition analysis in regard to sensitivity in old adult age estimation, compared with traditional methods. Our findings indicate a potential use of TA3 in reconstructing age frequencies and mortality profiles in commingled skeletal assemblages. Increasing our understanding of everyday life in the distant past necessitates better understandings of adult age, and here, we illustrate how age estimation method choice significantly changes bioarchaeological interpretations of aging in Bronze Age Arabia. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Adult age estimation using TA3 revealed significantly more middle and older adults than traditional methods in two commingled tombs. Similar mean maximum likelihood point estimates by side and across skeletal elements were found between tombs.

Investigating mobility and pastoralism in Kerma-period communities upstream of the fourth cataract, Sudan.

OBJECTIVES: The Kingdom of Kush in today's northern Sudan and southern Egypt (ancient Nubia) is often depicted as a secondary state relative to ancient Egypt. More recent investigations have set aside Egyptocentric and western, colonialist perspectives of state development focused on control of land and agricultural surplus, examining Kushites through the lens of African-based models of mobile pastoralism in which power and authority were achieved through control of herds and alliance-building. Here, analyses of radiogenic strontium isotopes in human dental enamel are used to investigate diachronic shifts in mobility patterns linked to pastoralism and state development during the Kerma period (ca. 2500-1100 BCE). MATERIALS AND METHODS: From five cemetery sites around al Qinifab, Sudan, upstream of the capital at Kerma, we analyzed the strontium isotope ratios of 50 teeth from 27 individuals dating from the Early through Late Kerma phases. RESULTS: Individuals from the Early and Middle Kerma phases demonstrated considerable 87 Sr/86 Sr ratio variability (mean = 0.70835 ± 0.00109), with 50% falling outside the locally bioavailable strontium range. Conversely, most Classic (0.70756 ± 0.00043) and Late Kerma (0.70755 ± 0.00036) individuals exhibited ratios consistent with the local region. DISCUSSION: These changes indicate a potential transformation in subsistence strategies and social organization as early communities engaged in a more mobile lifestyle than later groups, suggesting a greater degree of pastoralism followed by declining mobility with Kushite state coalescence and a shift to agropastoralism. Because 87 Sr/86 Sr ratios from enamel reflect childhood geographic residence, these findings indicate that mobility likely involved extended family groups, and not just transhumant adults.

Climate change, human health, and resilience in the Holocene.

Climate change is an indisputable threat to human health, especially for societies already confronted with rising social inequality, political and economic uncertainty, and a cascade of concurrent environmental challenges. Archaeological data about past climate and environment provide an important source of evidence about the potential challenges humans face and the long-term outcomes of alternative short-term adaptive strategies. Evidence from well-dated archaeological human skeletons and mummified remains speaks directly to patterns of human health over time through changing circumstances. Here, we describe variation in human epidemiological patterns in the context of past rapid climate change (RCC) events and other periods of past environmental change. Case studies confirm that human communities responded to environmental changes in diverse ways depending on historical, sociocultural, and biological contingencies. Certain factors, such as social inequality and disproportionate access to resources in large, complex societies may influence the probability of major sociopolitical disruptions and reorganizations-commonly known as "collapse." This survey of Holocene human-environmental relations demonstrates how flexibility, variation, and maintenance of Indigenous knowledge can be mitigating factors in the face of environmental challenges. Although contemporary climate change is more rapid and of greater magnitude than the RCC events and other environmental changes we discuss here, these lessons from the past provide clarity about potential priorities for equitable, sustainable development and the constraints of modernity we must address.

Twenty-first century bioarchaeology: Taking stock and moving forward.

This article presents outcomes from a Workshop entitled "Bioarchaeology: Taking Stock and Moving Forward," which was held at Arizona State University (ASU) on March 6-8, 2020. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the School of Human Evolution and Social Change (ASU), and the Center for Bioarchaeological Research (CBR, ASU), the Workshop's overall goal was to explore reasons why research proposals submitted by bioarchaeologists, both graduate students and established scholars, fared disproportionately poorly within recent NSF Anthropology Program competitions and to offer advice for increasing success. Therefore, this Workshop comprised 43 international scholars and four advanced graduate students with a history of successful grant acquisition, primarily from the United States. Ultimately, we focused on two related aims: (1) best practices for improving research designs and training and (2) evaluating topics of contemporary significance that reverberate through history and beyond as promising trajectories for bioarchaeological research. Among the former were contextual grounding, research question/hypothesis generation, statistical procedures appropriate for small samples and mixed qualitative/quantitative data, the salience of Bayesian methods, and training program content. Topical foci included ethics, social inequality, identity (including intersectionality), climate change, migration, violence, epidemic disease, adaptability/plasticity, the osteological paradox, and the developmental origins of health and disease. Given the profound changes required globally to address decolonization in the 21st century, this concern also entered many formal and informal discussions.

Advancing the understanding of treponemal disease in the past and present.

Syphilis was perceived to be a new disease in Europe in the late 15th century, igniting a debate about its origin that continues today in anthropological, historical, and medical circles. We move beyond this age-old debate using an interdisciplinary approach that tackles broader questions to advance the understanding of treponemal infection (syphilis, yaws, bejel, and pinta). How did the causative organism(s) and humans co-evolve? How did the related diseases caused by Treponema pallidum emerge in different parts of the world and affect people across both time and space? How are T. pallidum subspecies related to the treponeme causing pinta? The current state of scholarship in specific areas is reviewed with recommendations made to stimulate future work. Understanding treponemal biology, genetic relationships, epidemiology, and clinical manifestations is crucial for vaccine development today and for investigating the distribution of infection in both modern and past populations. Paleopathologists must improve diagnostic criteria and use a standard approach for recording skeletal lesions on archaeological human remains. Adequate contextualization of cultural and environmental conditions is necessary, including site dating and justification for any corrections made for marine or freshwater reservoir effects. Biogeochemical analyses may assess aquatic contributions to diet, physiological changes arising from treponemal disease and its treatments (e.g., mercury), or residential mobility of those affected. Shifting the focus from point of origin to investigating who is affected (e.g., by age/sex or socioeconomic status) and disease distribution (e.g., coastal/ inland, rural/urban) will advance our understanding of the treponemal disease and its impact on people through time.

Status, kinship, and place of burial at Early Bronze Age Bab adh-Dhra': A biogeochemical comparison of charnel house human remains.

OBJECTIVES: The Early Bronze Age (EBA; ca. 3,600-2000 BCE) of the southern Levant underwent considerable transformation as agro-pastoral communities began to utilize their land more intensively, constructing larger, fortified towns prior to site abandonment at the end of the third millennium. At the site of Bab adh-Dhra' in Jordan, the dead of the Early Bronze (EB) II-III (ca. 3,100-2,500 BCE) period were communally interred within charnel houses, but important disparities between these structures and their contents may be reflective of ownership and use by particular extended kin groups whose activity patterns, subsistence strategies, and even social status may have differed from one another. Subsequently, we hypothesized that differences in mobility and dietary intake may differentiate tomb groups from one another. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Dental enamel from 31 individuals interred in three different Early Bronze Age charnel houses (A56, A22, A55) at Bab adh-Dhra', Jordan were analyzed for strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotope values. RESULTS: Strontium isotope ratios (range: 0.70793-0.70842) possessed medians that did not differ statistically from one another, but had ranges that exhibited significant differences in variance. Carbon isotope values ( x¯ = -13.2 ± 0.5‰, 1σ) were not significantly different. DISCUSSION: General similarities in human isotopic signatures between EB II-III charnel houses A22 and A55 suggest that their activities were likely similar to one another and agree with findings from excavated domestic spaces with little archaeological evidence for economic, social, or political differentiation. More variable strontium isotope ratios and lower carbon isotope values from A22 could reflect a greater involvement with pastoralist practices or regional trade, including the consumption of more 13 C-depleted foods, while those in A55 may have led a more sedentary lifestyle with greater involvement in cultivating orchard crops. All charnel houses contained nonlocal individuals likely originating from other Dead Sea Plain sites with no EB II-III cemeteries of their own, supporting the idea that extended kin groups throughout the region returned to Bab adh-Dhra' to bury their dead.

Deviant burials and social identity in a postmedieval Polish cemetery: An analysis of stable oxygen and carbon isotopes from the "vampires" of Drawsko.

OBJECTIVES: Deviant burials can reveal important information about both social and individual identity, particularly when the mortuary record is supplemented by an examination of skeletal remains. At the postmedieval (17th to 18th c. AD) cemetery of Drawsko (Site 1), Poland, six individuals (of n = 285) received deviant, anti-vampiristic mortuary treatment. A previous study using radiogenic strontium isotope ratios ( x¯= 0.7112 ± 0.0006, 1σ, n = 60) found that these "vampires" were in fact locals, not migrants to the region targeted for deviant burial due to their status as immigrant outsiders. However, considerable geologic overlap in strontium isotope ratios across the North European Plain may have masked the identification of at least some nonlocal individuals. This study further contextualizes strontium isotope ratios using additional biogeochemical data to test the hypothesis that additional nonlocals were present in the Drawsko cemetery. METHODS: Stable oxygen and carbon isotopes from the dental enamel of 58 individuals interred in both normative and atypical burials at Drawsko were analyzed. RESULTS: Both δ18 Oc(VPDB) ( x¯= -4.5 ± 0.7‰) and δ13 Cap isotope values ( x¯= -13.6 ± 0.8‰) displayed little variability and were not significantly different between vampire and normative burials, supporting prior strontium results of a largely local population. Nevertheless, homogeneity in oxygen isotope values across other northern European sites makes it difficult to speculate about isotopic regional diversity, leaving open the possibility that additional migrants to the region remain undetected. Additionally, carbon isotope values point to a locally sourced diet dominated by C3 resources but with some supplementation by C4 goods that likely included millet, fitting with historic descriptions of postmedieval diet in Poland. CONCLUSIONS: Those interred as vampires appear local to the region and thus likely underwent deviant funerary treatment due to some other social stigma not apparent from the skeleton.

Continuity or conquest? A multi-isotope approach to investigating identity in the Early Iron Age of the Southern Levant.

OBJECTIVES: Across the Mediterranean and Near East, the transition from the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550-1200 BC) to the Early Iron Age (ca. 1200-900 BC) was accompanied by profound cultural change. While this transformation was initially attributed to invasion or conquest, more recent, nuanced interpretations of archaeological and biological data now emphasize the decline of palatial economies, a shift away from centralized political authority, and internal social restructuring amidst rapid climate change in lieu of "collapse." Correspondingly, the hypothesis that Early Iron Age populations in Palestine represent the same ethnic group whose culture nevertheless underwent considerable change by actively adapting to internal and external forces was tested using biogeochemical data from individuals interred within an Early Iron Age tomb at the site of Tell Dothan. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Human dental enamel from molars (n = 43) recovered from Tomb I at Tell Dothan was analyzed for radiogenic strontium isotope ratios and stable oxygen and carbon (VPDB) isotope values. RESULTS: Strontium (mean = 0.70816 ± 0.00005, 1σ) isotope ratios, as well as oxygen (mean = -2.3 ± 0.7‰, 1σ) and carbon (mean = -11.9 ± 0.5‰, 1σ) isotope values, all display little variability. DISCUSSION: The absence of non-locals at Tell Dothan indicates that population replacement does not adequately explain the sociopolitical changes observed in the archaeological record. Further, homogeneity among isotope values is indicative of a community that was not highly mobile, suggesting that decentralization and a corresponding transition to a more mobile lifestyle may not accurately reflect the adaptive strategies of all human groups during this period as a mechanism to cope with social and environmental change.

Differential diagnosis of a progressive neuromuscular disorder using bioarchaeological and biogeochemical evidence from a bronze age skeleton in the UAE.

Bioarchaeologists frequently rely on differential diagnoses to examine pathological conditions in ancient human skeletons. However, this method is often hindered by the skeleton's limited response abilities, resulting in similar skeletal expressions across multiple diseases. These diseases can be placed into perspective by using stable isotope analysis to explore the life course of an individual. In the current study, strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotope values from the dental enamel of a young (18-20 year old) paraplegic female interred within the Bronze Age Tomb of Tell Abraq are used to explore her life course and give perspective on a previously indeterminate differential diagnosis involving a progressive neuromuscular disorder. This individual's isotope values show that she was a non-local migrant who arrived at Tell Abraq sometime after 15 years of age and that her immigrant status may have placed her at enhanced immunological risk for developing paralytic poliomyelitis. We argue that biogeochemical analysis can be used to go beyond questions of residential mobility to examine the lifeways and broader cultural practices of ancient peoples.

Monks on the move: Evaluating pilgrimage to Byzantine St. Stephen's monastery using strontium isotopes.

OBJECTIVES: Written and archaeological evidence indicates that migration, in the form of pilgrimage to Byzantine Palestine, was a major social phenomenon between the 5th and 7th centuries CE. Monasteries saw record growth at this time as pilgrims chose to stay in the region and take up religious life. A major influx of people to the region, with a corresponding growth in monastic vocations that led travelers to stay in the area, is not in question; however, the distant origins of pilgrims reflected in surviving texts may be an artifact of preservation, biased towards an elite minority. The Byzantine monastery of St. Stephen's provides an opportunity to study this question from a bioarchaeological perspective, given the excellent preservation of the human skeletal assemblage, a wealth of written works about the community as well as daily life in Byzantine Palestine, and a rich archaeological record for the site and region. MATERIALS AND METHODS: An analysis of radiogenic strontium isotope values from the third molars of 22 individuals recovered from the St. Stephen's crypt complex was conducted to test whether those interred at the monastery were of local origin. RESULTS: Of those examined ( x¯= 0.7084 ± 0.0007, 1σ), 8 out of 22 (36%) exhibited (87) Sr/(86) Sr ratios that fell outside of local ranges. DISCUSSION: These results confirmed the sizeable presence of nonlocals at St. Stephen's Monastery. While most of these migrants likely traveled to Jerusalem from different areas of the Levant as pilgrims, others may have hailed from further afield, including Europe.

Apotropaic practices and the undead: a biogeochemical assessment of deviant burials in post-medieval poland.

Apotropaic observances-traditional practices intended to prevent evil-were not uncommon in post-medieval Poland, and included specific treatment of the dead for those considered at risk for becoming vampires. Excavations at the Drawsko 1 cemetery (17th-18th c. AD) have revealed multiple examples (n = 6) of such deviant burials amidst hundreds of normative interments. While historic records describe the many potential reasons why some were more susceptible to vampirism than others, no study has attempted to discern differences in social identity between individuals within standard and deviant burials using biogeochemical analyses of human skeletal remains. The hypothesis that the individuals selected for apotropaic burial rites were non-local immigrants whose geographic origins differed from the local community was tested using radiogenic strontium isotope ratios from archaeological dental enamel. 87Sr/86Sr ratios ( = 0.7112±0.0006, 1σ) from the permanent molars of 60 individuals reflect a predominantly local population, with all individuals interred as potential vampires exhibiting local strontium isotope ratios. These data indicate that those targeted for apotropaic practices were not migrants to the region, but instead, represented local individuals whose social identity or manner of death marked them with suspicion in some other way. Cholera epidemics that swept across much of Eastern Europe during the 17th century may provide one alternate explanation as to the reason behind these apotropaic mortuary customs, as the first person to die from an infectious disease outbreak was presumed more likely to return from the dead as a vampire.

Geographic origins and dietary transitions during the Bronze Age in the Oman Peninsula.

The nature of the Bronze Age transition from the Umm an-Nar (ca. 2700-2000 BC) to the Wadi Suq (ca. 2000-1300 BC) period in the Oman Peninsula has been highly debated by archaeologists, with some characterizing the latter as a time of cultural isolation, social collapse, and/or population replacement following the successful involvement of the area in widespread interregional exchange networks across Arabia and South Asia. The hypothesis that a substantial change in residential mobility, immigration, and diet took place in response to considerable societal changes as reflected by the archaeological record was tested using stable oxygen and carbon isotope analysis. Archaeological human dental enamel from individuals interred in six Umm an-Nar (n = 100) and seven Wadi Suq (n = 16) communal tombs in the United Arab Emirates was used. Oxygen isotope data reveal largely homogeneous ratios indicative of a predominantly local population that acquired water from isotopically similar sources, although the presence of immigrants during both periods suggests that the region was not as isolated as previously held. Carbon isotope data exhibit a substantial temporal shift from an extremely varied to a more restricted diet, demonstrating that while considerable changes in subsistence strategies and social organization took place in the early second millennium BC, population continuity and sustained (although lessened) participation in pan-Gulf trade systems best characterizes this regional transformation.