The squash family (Cucurbitaceae) contains some of the most important crops cultivated worldwide and has played an important ecological, economic, and cultural role for millennia. In the American tropics, squashes were among the first cultivated crop species, but little is known about how their domestication unfolded. Here, we employ direct radiocarbon dating and morphological analyses of desiccated cucurbit seeds, rinds, and stems from El Gigante Rockshelter in Honduras to reconstruct human practices of selection and cultivation of Lagenaria siceraria, Cucurbita pepo, and Cucurbita moschata.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe origins of maize were the topic of vigorous debate for nearly a century, but neither the current genetic model nor earlier archaeological models account for the totality of available data, and recent work has highlighted the potential contribution of a wild relative, ssp. . Our population genetic analysis reveals that the origin of modern maize can be traced to an admixture between ancient maize and ssp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBefore the colonial period, California harboured more language variation than all of Europe, and linguistic and archaeological analyses have led to many hypotheses to explain this diversity. We report genome-wide data from 79 ancient individuals from California and 40 ancient individuals from Northern Mexico dating to 7,400-200 years before present (BP). Our analyses document long-term genetic continuity between people living on the Northern Channel Islands of California and the adjacent Santa Barbara mainland coast from 7,400 years BP to modern Chumash groups represented by individuals who lived around 200 years BP.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEl Gigante rockshelter in western Honduras provides a deeply stratified archaeological record of human-environment interaction spanning the entirety of the Holocene. Botanical materials are remarkably well preserved and include important tree (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe influence of climate change on civil conflict and societal instability in the premodern world is a subject of much debate, in part because of the limited temporal or disciplinary scope of case studies. We present a transdisciplinary case study that combines archeological, historical, and paleoclimate datasets to explore the dynamic, shifting relationships among climate change, civil conflict, and political collapse at Mayapan, the largest Postclassic Maya capital of the Yucatán Peninsula in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries CE. Multiple data sources indicate that civil conflict increased significantly and generalized linear modeling correlates strife in the city with drought conditions between 1400 and 1450 cal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe genetic prehistory of human populations in Central America is largely unexplored leaving an important gap in our knowledge of the global expansion of humans. We report genome-wide ancient DNA data for a transect of twenty individuals from two Belize rock-shelters dating between 9,600-3,700 calibrated radiocarbon years before present (cal. BP).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaize ( ssp. ) domestication began in southwestern Mexico ∼9,000 calendar years before present (cal. BP) and humans dispersed this important grain to South America by at least 7,000 cal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArchaeological research documents major technological shifts among people who have lived in the southern tip of South America (South Patagonia) during the last thirteen millennia, including the development of marine-based economies and changes in tools and raw materials. It has been proposed that movements of people spreading culture and technology propelled some of these shifts, but these hypotheses have not been tested with ancient DNA. Here we report genome-wide data from 20 ancient individuals, and co-analyze it with previously reported data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaize is a cultigen of global economic importance, but when it first became a staple grain in the Americas, was unknown and contested. Here, we report direct isotopic dietary evidence from 52 radiocarbon-dated human skeletons from two remarkably well-preserved rock-shelter contexts in the Maya Mountains of Belize spanning the past 10,000 years. Individuals dating before ~4700 calendar years before present (cal B.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere are many unanswered questions about the population history of the Central and South Central Andes, particularly regarding the impact of large-scale societies, such as the Moche, Wari, Tiwanaku, and Inca. We assembled genome-wide data on 89 individuals dating from ∼9,000-500 years ago (BP), with a particular focus on the period of the rise and fall of state societies. Today's genetic structure began to develop by 5,800 BP, followed by bi-directional gene flow between the North and South Highlands, and between the Highlands and Coast.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBy sequencing 523 ancient humans, we show that the primary source of ancestry in modern South Asians is a prehistoric genetic gradient between people related to early hunter-gatherers of Iran and Southeast Asia. After the Indus Valley Civilization's decline, its people mixed with individuals in the southeast to form one of the two main ancestral populations of South Asia, whose direct descendants live in southern India. Simultaneously, they mixed with descendants of Steppe pastoralists who, starting around 4000 years ago, spread via Central Asia to form the other main ancestral population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSituated at over 5,000 meters above sea level in the Himalayan Mountains, Roopkund Lake is home to the scattered skeletal remains of several hundred individuals of unknown origin. We report genome-wide ancient DNA for 38 skeletons from Roopkund Lake, and find that they cluster into three distinct groups. A group of 23 individuals have ancestry that falls within the range of variation of present-day South Asians.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMuch of the American Arctic was first settled 5,000 years ago, by groups of people known as Palaeo-Eskimos. They were subsequently joined and largely displaced around 1,000 years ago by ancestors of the present-day Inuit and Yup'ik. The genetic relationship between Palaeo-Eskimos and Native American, Inuit, Yup'ik and Aleut populations remains uncertain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHow food production first entered eastern Africa ~5000 years ago and the extent to which people moved with livestock is unclear. We present genome-wide data from 41 individuals associated with Later Stone Age, Pastoral Neolithic (PN), and Iron Age contexts in what are now Kenya and Tanzania to examine the genetic impacts of the spreads of herding and farming. Our results support a multiphase model in which admixture between northeastern African-related peoples and eastern African foragers formed multiple pastoralist groups, including a genetically homogeneous PN cluster.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe report genome-wide ancient DNA from 49 individuals forming four parallel time transects in Belize, Brazil, the Central Andes, and the Southern Cone, each dating to at least ∼9,000 years ago. The common ancestral population radiated rapidly from just one of the two early branches that contributed to Native Americans today. We document two previously unappreciated streams of gene flow between North and South America.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe earliest evidence for cheese production in the Mediterranean is revealed by stable carbon isotope analyses of individual fatty acids in pottery residues from the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. Lipid residue data indicate the presence of milk in the earliest pottery, Impressed Ware, by 5700 cal. BCE (7700 BP).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHundreds of scarlet macaw () skeletons have been recovered from archaeological contexts in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico (SW/NW). The location of these skeletons, >1,000 km outside their Neotropical endemic range, has suggested a far-reaching pre-Hispanic acquisition network. Clear evidence for scarlet macaw breeding within this network is only known from the settlement of Paquimé in NW dating between 1250 and 1450 CE.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFrom around 2750 to 2500 bc, Bell Beaker pottery became widespread across western and central Europe, before it disappeared between 2200 and 1800 bc. The forces that propelled its expansion are a matter of long-standing debate, and there is support for both cultural diffusion and migration having a role in this process. Here we present genome-wide data from 400 Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age Europeans, including 226 individuals associated with Beaker-complex artefacts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe first steps toward maize ( subspecies ) domestication occurred in the Balsas region of Mexico by ∼9,000 calendar years B.P. (cal B.
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