Mobility and kinship in the world's first village societies.

Around 10,000 y ago in southwest Asia, the cessation of a mobile lifestyle and the emergence of the first village communities during the Neolithic marked a fundamental change in human history. The first communities were small (tens to hundreds of individuals) but remained semisedentary. So-called megasites appeared soon after, occupied by thousands of more sedentary inhabitants. Accompanying this shift, the material culture and ancient ecological data indicate profound changes in economic and social behavior. A shift from residential to logistical mobility and increasing population size are clear and can be explained by either changes in fertility and/or aggregation of local groups. However, as sedentism increased, small early communities likely risked inbreeding without maintaining or establishing exogamous relationships typical of hunter-gatherers. Megasites, where large populations would have made endogamy sustainable, could have avoided this risk. To examine the role of kinship practices in the rise of megasites, we measured strontium and oxygen isotopes in tooth enamel from 99 individuals buried at Pinarbasi, Boncuklu, and Çatalhöyük (Turkey) over 7,000 y. These sites are geographically proximate and, critically, span both early sedentary behaviors (Pinarbasi and Boncuklu) and the rise of a local megasite (Çatalhöyük). Our data are consistent with the presence of only local individuals at Pinarbasi and Boncuklu, whereas at Çatalhöyük, several nonlocals are present. The Çatalhöyük data stand in contrast to other megasites where bioarchaeological evidence has pointed to strict endogamy. These different kinship behaviors suggest that megasites may have arisen by employing unique, community-specific kinship practices.

A cranial injury from the earliest Gravettian at the Cro-Magnon rock shelter (Vézère Valley, Dordogne, southwest France).

Discovered over 150 years ago, the early Upper Paleolithic human remains from the Cro-Magnon rock shelter have an iconic status, but because of skeletal commingling after discovery, their bio-profiles remain incomplete and contentious. The defect on the frontal bone of the cranium known as Cro-Magnon 2 has been interpreted as both an antemortem injury and a postmortem (i.e., taphonomic) artifact previously. This contribution considers the cranium in order to clarify the status of the defect on the frontal bone and to situate these remains among others of Pleistocene date with similar types of lesions. The diagnostic criteria used to assess the cranium are drawn from recent publications of actualistic experimental studies of cranial trauma and from those associated with cranial trauma due to violence in forensic anthropological and bioarchaeological contexts. The appearance of the defect and comparison with more recent documented cases from the preantibiotic era suggest that the defect is a result of antemortem trauma with survival for a short period. The location of the lesion on the cranium provides growing evidence for interpersonal aggression in these early modern human groups, and the place of burial also provides insight into related mortuary behavior.

Bioarchaeology of Neolithic Çatalhöyük reveals fundamental transitions in health, mobility, and lifestyle in early farmers.

The transition from a human diet based exclusively on wild plants and animals to one involving dependence on domesticated plants and animals beginning 10,000 to 11,000 y ago in Southwest Asia set into motion a series of profound health, lifestyle, social, and economic changes affecting human populations throughout most of the world. However, the social, cultural, behavioral, and other factors surrounding health and lifestyle associated with the foraging-to-farming transition are vague, owing to an incomplete or poorly understood contextual archaeological record of living conditions. Bioarchaeological investigation of the extraordinary record of human remains and their context from Neolithic Çatalhöyük (7100-5950 cal BCE), a massive archaeological site in south-central Anatolia (Turkey), provides important perspectives on population dynamics, health outcomes, behavioral adaptations, interpersonal conflict, and a record of community resilience over the life of this single early farming settlement having the attributes of a protocity. Study of Çatalhöyük human biology reveals increasing costs to members of the settlement, including elevated exposure to disease and labor demands in response to community dependence on and production of domesticated plant carbohydrates, growing population size and density fueled by elevated fertility, and increasing stresses due to heightened workload and greater mobility required for caprine herding and other resource acquisition activities over the nearly 12 centuries of settlement occupation. These changes in life conditions foreshadow developments that would take place worldwide over the millennia following the abandonment of Neolithic Çatalhöyük, including health challenges, adaptive patterns, physical activity, and emerging social behaviors involving interpersonal violence.

Do bone geometric properties of the proximal femoral diaphysis reflect loading history, muscle properties, or body dimensions?

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate activity-induced effects from bone geometric properties of the proximal femur in athletic vs nonathletic healthy females by statistically controlling for variation in body size, lower limb isometric, and dynamic muscle strength, and cross-sectional area of Musculus gluteus maximus. METHODS: The material consists of hip and proximal thigh magnetic resonance images of Finnish female athletes (N = 91) engaged in either high jump, triple jump, soccer, squash, powerlifting, endurance running or swimming, and a group of physically active nonathletic women (N = 20). Cross-sectional bone geometric properties were calculated for the lesser trochanter, sub-trochanter, and mid-shaft of the femur regions. Bone geometric properties were analyzed using a general linear model that included body size, muscle size, and muscle strength as covariates. RESULTS: Body size and isometric muscle strength were positively associated with bone geometric properties at all three cross-sectional levels of the femur, while muscle size was positively associated with bone properties only at the femur mid-shaft. When athletes were compared to nonathletic females, triple jump, soccer, and squash resulted in greater values in all studied cross-sections; high jump and endurance running resulted in greater values at the femoral mid-shaft cross-section; and swimming resulted in lower values at sub-trochanter and femur mid-shaft cross-sections. CONCLUSIONS: Activity effects from ground impact loading were associated with higher bone geometric values, especially at the femur mid-shaft, but also at lesser and sub-trochanter cross-sections. Bone geometric properties along the femur can be used to assess the mechanical stimuli experienced, where ground impact loading seems to be more important than muscle loading.

Population density and developmental stress in the Neolithic: A diachronic study of dental fluctuating asymmetry at Çatalhöyük (Turkey, 7,100-5,950 BC).

OBJECTIVES: The transition from foraging to farming is usually associated with unprecedented population densities coupled with an increase in fertility and population growth. However, little is known about the biological effects of such demographic changes during the Neolithic. In the present work, we test the relationship between diachronic changes in population size, relative exposure to developmental stressors, and patterns of dental fluctuating asymmetry in the Neolithic population of Çatalhöyük (Turkey, 7,100-5,950 cal BC). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We calculate fluctuating asymmetry of mesio-distal and bucco-lingual diameters of upper and lower permanent canines and first and second molars on a large (N = 259) sample representing adults of both sexes and various age classes. RESULTS: Results show only a moderate decrease of fluctuating asymmetry during the late phase of occupation of the site, possibly linked to a decrease in population density, and no differences in asymmetry between sexes. DISCUSSION: Though preliminary, our data reflect the presence of developmental stressors throughout the occupation of the site, albeit with a slight improvement in living conditions during the latest periods of occupation. At the same time, these data confirm the key role of diet as buffer against the detrimental effects of fluctuating demographic pressures on the biology of prehistoric human populations.

The relationship between loading history and proximal femoral diaphysis cross-sectional geometry.

OBJECTIVES: We investigated the relationship between loading history and bone biomechanical properties used in physical activity reconstructions. These bone properties included bone bending and torsional strength (J), cortical area (CA), the direction of the major axis (theta angle), and element shape ratios determined from cross sections of standardized bone length. In addition, we explored the applicability of anatomically determined cross sections. METHODS: Our material consisted of hip and proximal thigh magnetic resonance images of Finnish female athletes (N = 91) engaged in high-jump, triple-jump, endurance running, swimming, power-lifting, soccer and squash; along with a group of active non-athlete individuals (N = 20). We used regression analysis for size-adjustment, and the extracted residuals were then used to compare differences in the bone properties between groups. RESULTS: We found that triple-jumpers, soccer players, and squash players had the greatest values in CA and J, swimmers and non-athletes had the smallest, whereas high-jumpers, power-lifters, and endurance runners exhibited interim values. No between-the-group differences in element shape ratios or theta angles were found. We found that influences of activity were similar regardless of whether standardized length or anatomically determined cross sections were used. CONCLUSIONS: Extreme (triple-jump) and directionally inconsistent loading (soccer and squash) necessitate a more robust skeleton compared to directionally consistent loading (high-jump, power-lifting, and endurance running) or non-impact loading (swimming and non-athletes). However, not all of these relationships were statistically significant. Thus, information gained about physical activity using bone properties is informative but limited. Accounting for the limitations, the method is applicable on fragmented skeletal material as anatomically determined cross sections can be used.

"But some were more equal than others:" Exploring inequality at Neolithic Çatalhöyük.

We explore the ways in which residents of Neolithic Çatalhöyük in Anatolia differentiated themselves as well as the ways in which they did not. We integrate numerous data sets in order to assess patterns of inequality (A) across buildings with contemporaneous occupations, (B) between buildings that did or did not burn at abandonment, and (C) through time. We use Gini coefficients so as to maximize comparability with other studies of inequality in the ancient and modern worlds, discussing the underlying data and our results to clarify and enhance the value of the quantitative analyses. We evaluate whether or not trajectories of inequality align across data sets in order to determine how far success in one realm correlated with success in another. Our results indicate no unified trajectory of inequality through time. We perceive broadly similar access to staple foods, but not to goods less directly related to survival; relatively elevated income inequality during the middle portion of the site's occupation, plausibly deliberately tamped down; and no evidence for institutionalized or lasting economic or social inequality. These findings shed light on Neolithic social dynamics and also contribute to broader discussions of inequality and the social ramifications of early agropastoralism.

Enhancing the learning of evolutionary anthropology skills by combining student-active teaching with actual and virtual immersion of Master's students in fieldwork, laboratory practice, and dissemination.

Higher education in evolutionary anthropology involves providing students with in-depth knowledge of biological and cultural heritage sites and collections that are frequently inaccessible. Indeed, most sites, fossils, and archaeological remains can be visited or manipulated only rarely and solely by specialists with extensive experience. Owing to the development of 3D and medical imaging techniques, this fragile heritage is now more widely accessible, and in a dynamic way. However, exclusive adoption of virtual teaching and learning has a negative impact on student engagement and, naturally, on exchanges with instructors, and thus cannot be used without some reservations. In the ITAP (Immersion dans les Terrains de l'Anthropologie biologique et de la Préhistoire) project of the higher education STEP (Soutien à la Transformation et à l'Expérimentation Pédagogiques) transformation program at the University of Bordeaux, we combine student-active teaching with Master's students fully immersed in ongoing fieldwork, laboratory study, and dissemination of research results in order to develop more individually shaped learning curricula and to foster both professional and new interdisciplinary skills. Here, we present examples of experiments conducted in the ITAP project using both authentic and virtual collections of archaeological, experimental, and reference materials that help to break down the barriers between research activities and higher education, as well as providing a more general appraisal of the appropriate use of virtual tools in higher education by combining them with real-life situations.

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.

The unwritten history of medical treatment: Evidence for ritual-healers and their activities in the pre-literate past.

OBJECTIVE: To reveal the presence and activities of healers from funerary contexts. MATERIALS: Ethnohistoric and ethnographic textual descriptions and the bioarchaeological record. METHODS: A synthesis of human remains, grave contexts, and funerary objects. CONCLUSIONS: The capacity to act as a "healer" forms part of the social identity of a diverse range of uniquely specialized individuals cross-culturally who also perform a variety of other roles associated with transcendent ideologies, beliefs, and religion. They are ambivalent, capable of doing both good and ill. They defend the health and well-being of the individual and the community but, using the same knowledge, are also implicated in attacks on individuals and groups within and outside their communities. This ambivalence, combined with a lack of defined institutional organization and the great diversity of medico-religious healers in the recent ethnographic past and historically, makes the identification of such individuals in the archaeological record controversial, but they are present. SIGNIFICANCE: Not only are healers identifiable in the archaeological record, but their practices disproportionately influence it, acting as a powerful complement to historical sources for the development of medicine and medical knowledge. LIMITATIONS: Published literature is of variable detail, which means that healing practices and healers are under-appreciated and under-represented in reconstructions of past societies. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH: Application of archaeothanatological approaches to recording and synthesis of the funerary context with the remains of the deceased can be used to identify objects and practices used in healing that have been more recently superseded by scientific approaches to health.

Enthesopathies as occupational stress markers: evidence from the upper limb.

Enthesopathies--that is, "musculo-skeletal stress markers"--are frequently used to reconstruct past lifestyles and activity patterns. Relatively little attention has been paid in physical anthropology to methodological gaps implicit in this approach: almost all methods previously employed neglect current medical insights into enthesopathies and the distinction between healthy and pathological aspects has been arbitrary. This study presents a new visual method of studying fibrocartilaginous enthesopathies of the upper limb (modified from Villotte: Bull Mém Soc Anthropol Paris n.s. 18 (2006) 65-85), and application of this method to 367 males who died between the 18th and 20th centuries, from four European identified skeletal collections: the Christ Church Spitalfields Collection, the identified skeletal collection of the anthropological museum of the University of Coimbra, and the Sassari and Bologna collections of the museum of Anthropology, University of Bologna. The analysis, using generalized estimating equations to model repeated binary outcome variables, has established a strong link between enthesopathies and physical activity: men with occupations involving heavy manual tasks have significantly (P-value < 0.001) more lesions of the upper limbs than nonmanual and light manual workers. Probability of the presence of an enthesopathy also increases with age and is higher for the right side compared with the left. Our study failed to distinguish significant differences between the collections when adjusted for the other effects. It appears that enthesopathies can be used to reconstruct past lifestyles of populations if physical anthropologists: 1) pay attention to the choice of entheses in their studies and 2) use appropriate methods.

Iron Age breastfeeding practices in Britain: isotopic evidence from Wetwang Slack, East Yorkshire.

We present here the results of carbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis of bone collagen undertaken on all skeletal remains of infants and young children below the age of 6 years (n = 34) from the internationally important British cemetery site at Wetwang Slack in East Yorkshire (middle Iron Age, ca. 4th to 2nd centuries BC). The aim of the study is to investigate infant diet, with particular reference to breastfeeding and weaning practices, and to compare the data with previously published studies of archaeological populations, particularly in the context of the variation in data patterns to be seen between sites. The skeletal remains from Wetwang Slack form the only prehistoric collection in the UK, prior to the Romano-British period, with sufficient individuals in this age group to make such an isotopic study viable alongside associated adults and older children. The data are compared in detail with published data from two other sites, one from 19th century Canada and the other from Medieval Britain. The results suggest an unusual situation at Wetwang Slack, with neither the nitrogen nor the carbon isotope ratios conforming to expectations when compared with the putative mothers. We discuss how these data compare with the expectation for breastfed infants and we interpret the divergence in this case to be due to restricted breastfeeding and the early introduction of supplementary foods.

A Neolithic case of fibrous dysplasia from Çatalhöyük (Turkey).

The vast majority of primary burials at Neolithic Çatalhöyük (Central Anatolia, Turkey, 7100-6000cal BC) are recovered from beneath house floors, with burials in external spaces extremely rare. Excavations at Çatalhöyük in 1998 brought to light a young adult male buried in a midden (a burial location observed so far for only 4 out of 440 individuals), showing a suite of pathological features affecting the entire skeleton. The observed pathological changes include perimortem and antemortem fractures, proliferative and resorptive areas, thinning of the bone cortex, and localized areas of disorganized spongy bone invaded by fibrous tissue. We propose a differential diagnosis by considering a set of conditions: Paget's disease, osteomyelitis, hyperparathyrhoidism, Ollier's disease, fibrosarcoma, and fibrous dysplasia. The severity and distribution of the observed skeletal changes are consistent with a diagnosis of polyostotic fibrous dysplasia, a possibly debilitating and disfiguring condition. This, together with an unusual depositional context, may suggest a socially-mediated reaction to this individual's infirmity.

The cross-sectional area of the gluteus maximus muscle varies according to habitual exercise loading: Implications for activity-related and evolutionary studies.

Greater size of the gluteus maximus muscle in humans compared to non-human primates has been considered an indication of its function in bipedal posture and gait, especially running capabilities. Our aim was to find out how the size of the gluteus maximus muscle varies according to sports while controlling for variation in muscle strength and body weight. Data on gluteus maximus muscle cross-sectional area (MCA) were acquired from magnetic resonance images of the hip region of female athletes (N=91), and physically active controls (N=20). Dynamic muscle force was measured as counter movement jump and isometric knee extension force as leg press. Five exercise loading groups were created: high impact (triple-jumpers and high-jumpers), odd impact (soccer and squash players), high magnitude (power-lifters), repetitive impact (endurance runners) and repetitive non-impact (swimmers) loadings. Individuals in high impact, odd impact or high-magnitude loading groups had greater MCA compared to those of controls, requiring powerful hip extension, trunk stabilization in rapid directional change and high explosive muscle force. Larger body size and greater muscle strength were associated with larger MCA. An increase in dynamic force was associated with larger MCA, but the strength of this relationship varied with body weight. Thus, gluteal adaptation in humans promotes powerful lower limb movements required in sprinting and rapid changes in direction, as well as maintenance and stabilization of an erect trunk which also provides a platform for powerful motions of the upper limbs. These movements have likely evolved to facilitate food acquisition, including hunting.

Patterns of Irregular Burials in Western Europe (1st-5th Century A.D.).

BACKGROUND: Irregular burials (IB--burials showing features that contrast with the majority of others in their geographic and chronological context) have been the focus of archaeological study because of their relative rarity and enigmatic appearance. Interpretations of IB often refer to supposed fear of the dead or to social processes taking place in time-specific contexts. However, a comprehensive and quantitative analysis of IB for various geographical contexts is still lacking, a fact that hampers any discussion of these burials on a larger scale. METHODS: Here, we collected a bibliographic dataset of 375 IB from both Britain and Continental Europe, altogether spanning a time period from the 1st to the 5th century AD. Each burial has been coded according to ten dichotomous variables, further analyzed by means of chi-squared tests on absolute frequencies, non-metric multidimensional scaling, and cluster analysis. RESULTS: Even acknowledging the limits of this study, and in particular the bias represented by the available literature, our results point to interesting patterns. Geographically, IB show a contrast between Britain and Continental Europe, possibly related to historical processes specific to these regions. Different types of IB (especially prone depositions and depositions with the cephalic extremity displaced) present a series of characteristics and associations between features that permit a more detailed conceptualization of these occurrences from a socio-cultural perspective that aids to elucidate their funerary meaning. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: Altogether, the present work stresses the variability of IB, and the need to contextualize them in a proper archaeological and historical context. It contributes to the discussion of IB by providing a specific geographic and chronological frame of reference that supports a series of hypotheses about the cultural processes possibly underlying their occurrence.

Bio-cultural effects in medieval populations.

Male skeletons from medieval archaeological sites are analysed to assess differences in stature and body proportions related to the bio-cultural environment, such as social, economic, and health factors. Environmental factors, such as climate change in the course of the Middle Ages, did not have statistically significant effect on body proportions in these samples. The results show a relationship between bio-cultural factors and physique in the analysed populations that indicate stunted growth in height and weight in a leprosarium population with a low socio-economic and health status. A high-status monastic population is characterised by a stocky build, i.e., increased weight for height and relatively shorter limbs, while a medieval parish population has a linear build, i.e., relatively long limbs for height and decreased weight for height. These characteristics, relative weight for height and relative limb length, changed during the course of the Middle Ages, as did stature.

Activity-related skeletal change in medieval humeri: cross-sectional and architectural alterations.

This paper examines humeral cross-sectional properties in two different samples of later medieval date: a group of blade-injured males from the sites of Towton, North Yorkshire, and Fishergate in the City of York, England, and a comparative group of nonblade-injured males also from the site of Fishergate in York. CT image slices were taken of the humeral shaft at 20%, 35%, 50%, 65%, and 80% from the distal end to investigate population differences in levels and patterns of mechanical loading. Bilateral asymmetry is investigated and comparisons are made with different populations of varying activity levels. Architectural changes such as humeral torsion are also investigated to determine the relationship between architectural changes and biomechanical efficiency. Results show significant differences in diaphyseal robusticity between the Towton sample and the comparative population, as well as significant differences in diaphyseal shape both between limbs within the Towton sample and between blade-injured samples. Population differences were also identified in the level of bilateral asymmetry, further demonstrating the differences in movement and activity patterns both between and within samples. These variations may relate to distinctive, more strenuous weapon use and differences in strenuous movement patterns in the two groups.