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Jul 13, 2022 12 tweets 5 min read Read on X
🆕: Archaeologists have recovered >400-year-old DNA from colonial-era burials in Mexico, revealing the diversity of early European settlements in the Americas.

An #AntiquityThread (paper: buff.ly/3yYgdgN) 1/12 🧵 Image from a manuscript depicting conquistadors meeting Indi
Campeche was an early colonial settlement in Yucatán. It was founded in 1540, less than 20 years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, once conquistadors secured their rule. 2/12

📷: Location of Campeche
The city was served by a parish church until it was replaced by a cathedral in 1680. The church was rediscovered in 2000 during rescue excavations when 129 early colonial burials were found. 3/12

📷: Campeche’s cathedral, on the colonial plaza where the early church stood
Early attempts to extract DNA from these burials failed. Now advances in aDNA research have allowed Professor Vera Tiesler and a team of researchers from @Harvard to gather genetic data from this important site. 4/12

📷: Rescue excavations of the cemetery
“Ancient DNA methods have improved to the point where we can generate robust data from warm, humid environments,” said Dr Jakob Sedig, from the Reich Laboratory at Harvard University and co-lead author. This is encouraging for future ancient DNA analysis in this region. 5/12
aDNA was gathered from 10 people. Most were local Indigenous Americans, but there were also people of European and sub-Saharan African ancestry. Notably, this contradicted some previous attempts to identify sex & ancestry from physical attributes. 6/12

📷: PCA of the aDNA
“Early colonial Campeche had a multi-ethnic population, where previously disparate groups mixed for the first time,” said co-lead author Prof. Tiesler, from @uady_mx, “The Campeche cemetery confirms the prompt forced integration of all populations into this new way of life.” 7/12
Despite these diverse populations living (and being buried) together, there was no evidence people from these different backgrounds had children together. None of the individuals had recent ancestry from any other populations. 8/12

📷: Plan of the cemetery
“We expected to find individuals with mixed genetic ancestry. However, our analysis found no evidence of this,” said Dr Sedig, “This seems to indicate that although they were buried together, different groups maintained some degree of separation in life.” 9/12
Many of these details uncovered from the palaeogenetic data are missing from historical records, as they are mostly focused on the inhabitants of European ancestry. 10/12

📷: Panel from the History of the Indies of New Spain
“These data add a new ‘human’ layer to our understanding of a crucial era and location in the history of New Spain,” said Professor Tiesler, “These results provide insights into the individual lives and social divides of the town’s founder communities.” 11/12
If you want to find out more, the original research is 🆓:

'Life and death in early colonial Campeche: new insights from ancient DNA' - Vera Tiesler, Jakob Sedig, Nathan Nakatsuka, Swapan Mallick, Iosif Lazaridis, Rebecca Bernardos et al.
doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2…
12/12
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More from @AntiquityJ

Sep 23
NEW Analysis of Bronze Age arrowheads from the Tollense Valley 🇩🇪 reveals some were not produced locally, uncovering the earliest evidence for large-scale interregional conflict in Europe and suggesting a southern army fought at ‘Europe's oldest battle’.

#AntiquityThread 1/15 🧵 Leif Inselmann examining one of the foreign-type arrowheads in the find archive of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schwerin (credit: Leif Inselmann).
Warning: this thread contains images of human remains 2/16
The Tollense Valley in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is well-known as the site of a large conflict dating to c.1250 BC. The quantity of human remains found (more than 150 individuals) suggests over 2000 people were involved, an amount unprecedented for the Nordic Bronze Age. 3/16 Map of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany, highlighting the location of the Tollense Valley in relation to the city of Strasburg. Insert: map of Central and Eastern Europe, indicating the location of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Read 16 tweets
Mar 5
NEW Greek colonisation of the Mediterranean and the development of the Greek alphabet took place earlier than previously thought, radiocarbon dates from the Geometric period site of Zagora on the island of Andros find.

An #AntiquityThread 1/9 🧵 Fragment of a Late Geometric period krater, decorated with painted geometric patterns.
The Greek Geometric period is named after the ceramics of the time, which were painted with geometric patterns. It took place towards the end of the Early Iron Age in Greece and witnessed the beginning of Greek colonisation in the central Mediterranean. 2/9 Fragment of a Middle Geometric period pot, decorated with geometric patterns.
Key cultural developments, such as the introduction of the Greek alphabet, and a population boom took place during the Late Geometric period, which was thought to date from 760–700 BC. However, absolute dates are scarce and dating has been done using ceramic typologies. 3/9 Fragment of the base of a Sub-Protogeometric period skyphos.
Read 9 tweets
Feb 8
NEW Painkiller or pleasure? Black henbane seeds discovered in a hollowed bone provide the first conclusive evidence for the intentional use of the poisonous plant in the Roman world.

Strap in for a hallucinogenic #AntiquityThread 🧵 1/13

📷 BIAX Consult Hollowed sheep or goat bone next to many black seeds and a stopper made from black birch tar.
Archaeologists have discovered hundreds of black henbane seeds in a hollowed bone at the rural Roman-period settlement of Houten-Castellum in the Netherlands, providing the first firm evidence for the poisonous plant’s intentional use in the Roman world. 2/13 Many black henbane seeds.
Black henbane is a plant, known from ancient and historical sources both for its medical properties and for its hallucinogenic effects. Before now, however, no conclusive evidence of its use in the Roman world had been found. 3/13

📷 K.G. Simoglou / CC BY-SA 4.0 Two pale yellow black henbane flowers with black centres.
Read 13 tweets
Jan 23
NEW Pottery analysis uncovers the complex flavours of Roman wine!

Archaeologists have compared Roman clay jars for winemaking with modern Georgian examples, revealing how Roman wine looked, smelled, and tasted. 🍷

A dry and full-bodied #AntiquityThread 1/12 🧵 Buried Roman fermentation jars (dolia) from Villa Regina, Boscoreale. Credit: E. Dodd, courtesy of the Ministero della Cultura – Parco Archaeologico di Pompei.
The Romans are well-known for their love of wine. In the Roman world, large clay pots called dolia were manufactured for fermenting, storing and ageing wines. 2/12 Roman wine cellar at Tortoreto Muracche (Abruzzo). Credit: Francesco Pizzimenti, courtesy of Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le province di L’Aquila e Teramo.
"No study has yet scrutinised the role of these earthenware vessels in Roman winemaking and their impact on the look, smell and taste of ancient wines”, state the authors. 3/12
Read 12 tweets
Jan 15
NEW DNA analysis has revealed that regional cuisines persisted as new staple crops spread across the prehistoric world, showing how even the first cooks retained strong cooking traditions.

Strap in for a tasty #AntiquityThread 1/12 🧵 The Yanghai cemeteries. A desert containing many pits. Credit: Hongen Jiang.
Broomcorn millet was first domesticated in China before spreading west into Central Asia and beyond. In China it was cooked through boiling and steaming, producing a wet and sticky end product. 2/12 Harvested millet gathered into bundles in a field, with a mountain in the background.
In Central Asia, however, grains were typically ground and baked into bread. When millet was introduced, people simply applied their pre-existing cooking techniques to the new grain. 3/12 Loaves of bread.
Read 12 tweets
Dec 15, 2023
NEW Deep in the remote, boreal landscape of the Siberian taiga, a promontory fort has been found to be 8000 years old, making it the oldest in the world! It is a rare example of hunter-gatherers building fortified sites.

A wintery Antiquity Thread ❄️ 1/10 🧵 Above: a bank and ditch (highlighted red) marking the remains of a pit house. Below: a visible depression (highlighted red) marking the edge of the fortification.
Archaeologists have typically associated the rise of social and political 'complexity' in Eurasia with the development of agriculture. However, hunter-gatherers in Siberia built fortified settlements centuries before similar sites developed in Europe. 2/10 Map of Eurasia, showing hunter-gatherer (green) fortifications and agricultural (orange) enclosed sites.
To find out why, researchers performed fieldwork at a promontory fort (Amnya I), thought to be the oldest Stone Age fortification in Eurasia, and its associated settlement (Amnya II), providing the first direct radiocarbon dates for Amnya II. 3/10

📷 N. Golovanov Aerial photograph of the Amnya river and promontory.
Read 10 tweets

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