Scientists recreate ancient Siberian brain surgery techniques for first time

Experts undertake pioneering tests on skulls to finally understand how doctors carried out remarkable operations more than 2,300 years ago.

More details about the remarkable brain surgery techniques carried out by the earliest Siberians 2,300 years ago have been revealed by scientists.

Neurosurgeons have been working with anthropologists and archaeologists over the past year following the discovery of holes in the skulls of three ancient sets of remains in the Altai Mountains.

Evidence at the time suggested they were examples of trepanation – the oldest form of neurosurgery – with speculation it showed the early nomads had learned the skilful technique from the medical centres of the ancient world, or had uncovered it at the same time as prominent doctors in Greece and the Middle East.

Now, following a series of tests to recreate the ancient surgery, expert have uncovered more about the method and finally concluded how the early doctors carried out their work.

Among the findings made by the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science, were that the surgeons were highly skilful with the operations carried out with only one primitive tool scraping at the skull.

In addition, it was clear that the ancient doctors adhered to the strict Hippocratic Corpus, the landmark declaration of medical ethics set down 5,000km away in Greece in 500BC.

Prominent Novosibirsk neurosurgeon Aleksei Krivoshapkin, who was asked to examine the skulls, said: 'Honestly, I am amazed. We suspect now that in the time of Hippocrates, Altai people could do a very fine diagnosis and carry out skilful trepanations and fantastic brain surgery.'

The skulls, belonging to two men and a woman, were found in the Altai Mountains and date back about 2,300 to 2,500 years ago.

Analysis last year showed one of the males, who was aged between 40 and 45, had suffered a head trauma and had developed a blood clot that likely left him suffering headaches, nausea, sickness and movement problems.

It was surmised that the trepanation would have been carried out to remove the haematoma, with evidence of later bone growth indicating the man survived the surgery and lived for years afterwards.

The second man had no visible traces of trauma but instead was suspected of having a congenital skull deformation that the ancient surgeon wanted to fix.

In both cases, a relatively small hole was made in the skull allowing surgeons to access the brain at an area where damage to joints and the membrane would have been minimised.

And while the actual technique and the implements used may have varied from those recommended in Ancient Greece, it was clear the care for the patient and the location of the hole showed a similar ethnical consideration.

In order to study the procedure in detail, a team of experts have spent the past year examining the skulls and carrying out a series of tests to recreate the 2,000 year old surgery.

The remains were first analysed under a microscope at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography to find any markings that indicated the way the surgeons operated.

No trace of the way the doctors removed the skin was found, and given the good preservation of the skull surface it is assumed this was carried out with high precision.

It was found the trepanation was conducted in two stages. First, a sharp cutting tool removed the surface layer of bone carefully without perforating the skull itself. Then, with short and frequent movements a hole was cut into the skull.

Professor Krivoshapkin said: 'All three trepanations were performed by scraping. From the traces on the surface of the studied skulls, you can see the sequence of actions of the surgeons during the operations.

'It is clearly seen that the ancient surgeons were very exact and confident in their moves, with no traces of unintentionally chips, which are quite natural when cutting bone.'

Archaeologists have not yet uncovered any dedicated medical tools but in almost all graves from this epoch - regardless of social status - bronze knives were found.

The examination of the skulls showed that only one tool was used and it is suspected it could also be a bronze knife.

Professor Krivoshapkin tried testing a typical Tagar blade from the region, taken from the Minusinsk museum, on a skull but it was found to be unsuitable surgery.

A replica of a bronze knife from the time was then made using modern elements by archaeologist Andrei Borodovsky, a doctor of historical sciences at the Institute.

He said: 'I chose a brass alloy of copper, tin, and zinc after the failure with the Tagarsky knife, which turned to be too soft for such surgery. The blade just twirled. Our modern copy of brass alloy performed very well.

'I think it is important to remember that here in the 5th Century BC Altai was a big centre for bone cutting production. People here were very skilful in making different objects from animal bone.

'Working with the animal bones, they understood the main principles of working with such material and later it helped them to make such complicated surgeries.'

The final stage of the research was to recreate the surgical procedure using a modern-day skull. Copying the same techniques believed to have been used by the Altai surgeons, it took Professor Krivoshapkin 28 minutes to perform the technique.

While he said it 'required considerable effort', the hole in the skull was found to mirror those found in the ancient patients.

The last remaining unanswered question for the scientists, however, is what anaesthetic or painkiller the doctors used. Some speculate cannabis, but it may never be known.
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Reference:

Liesowska, Anna & Derek Lambie. 2015. “Scientists recreate ancient Siberian brain surgery techniques for first time”. The Siberian Times. Posted: January 29, 2015. Available online: http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/features/f0054-scientists-recreate-ancient-siberian-brain-surgery-techniques-for-first-time/

Language 'evolution' may shed light on human migration out-of-Beringia: Relationship between Siberian, North American languages

Evolutionary analysis applied to the relationship between North American and Central Siberian languages may indicate that people moved out from the Bering Land Bridge, with some migrating back to central Asia and others into North America, according to a paper published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on March 12, 2014 by Mark Sicoli, from Georgetown University and Gary Holton from University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Languages evolve slowly overtime and may even follow human migratory patterns. A proposed language family known as the Dené-Yeniseian suggests that there are common language elements between the North American Na-Dene languages and the Yeniseian languages of Central Siberia. To investigate this further, scientists employed a technique originally developed to investigate evolutionary relationships between biological species called phylogenetic analysis, where a tree is constructed to represent relationships of common ancestry based on shared traits. Scientists used linguistic phylogeny to work out how approximately 40 languages from the area diffused across North America and Asia. The authors first coded a linguistic dataset from the languages, modeled the relationship between the data, and then modeled it against migration patterns from Asia to North America, or out-of-Beringia.

Results show an early dispersal of Na-Dene along the North American coast with a Yeniseian back migration through Siberia and a later dispersal of North American interior Na-Dene languages. Sicoli explained, "we used computational phylogenetic methods to impose constraints on possible family tree relationships modeling both an Out-of-Beringia hypothesis and an Out-of-Asia hypothesis and tested these against the linguistic data. We found substantial support for the out-of-Beringia dispersal adding to a growing body of evidence for an ancestral population in Beringia before the land bridge was inundated by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age."

Although the authors cannot conclusively determine the migration pattern just from these results, and state that this study does not necessarily contradict the popular tale of hunters entering the New World through Beringia, it at the very least indicates that migration may not have been a one-way trip. This work also helps demonstrate the usefulness of evolutionary modeling with linguistic trees for investigating these types of questions.

These finding suggest that phylogenetics may be used to explore the implications of deep linguistic relationships.
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References:

Science Daily. 2014. “Language 'evolution' may shed light on human migration out-of-Beringia: Relationship between Siberian, North American languages”. Science Daily. Posted: March 12, 2014. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140312182018.htm

Boy’s Skeleton In Siberia Raises New Questions About First Americans

Results from a DNA study of a young boy’s skeletal remains believed to be 24,000 years old could turn the archaeological world upside down – it’s been proven that nearly 30 percent of modern Native American’s ancestry came from this youngster’s gene pool, suggesting First Americans came directly from Siberia, according to a research team that includes a Texas A&M University professor.

Kelly Graf, assistant professor in the Center for the Study of First Americans and Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M, is part of an international team spearheaded by Eske Willerslev and Maanasa Raghaven from the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and additional researchers from Sweden, Russia, United Kingdom, University of Chicago and University of California-Berkeley. Their work, funded by the Danish National Science Foundation, Lundbeck Foundation, and the National Science Foundation, is published in the current issue of Nature magazine.

Graf and Willerslev conceived the project and traveled to the Hermitage State Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, where the remains are now housed to collect samples for ancient DNA.  The skeleton was first discovered in the late 1920s near the village of Mal’ta in south-central Siberia, and since then it has been referred to as “the Mal’ta child” because until this DNA study the biological sex of the skeleton was unknown.

“Now we can say with confidence that this individual was a male” says Graf.

Graf helped extract DNA material from the boy’s upper arm and “the results surprised all of us quite a bit,” she explains.

“It shows he had close genetic ties to today’s Native Americans and some western Eurasians, specifically some groups living in central Asia, South Asia, and Europe. Also, he shared close genetic ties with other Ice-Age western Eurasians living in European Russia, Czech Republic and even Germany. We think these Ice-Age people were quite mobile and capable of maintaining a far-reaching gene pool that extended from central Siberia all the way west to central Europe.”

Another significant result of the study is that the Mal’ta boy’s people were also ancestors of Native Americans, explaining why some early Native American skeletons such as Kennewick Man were interpreted to have some European traits.

“Our study proves that Native Americans ancestors migrated to the Americas from Siberia and not directly from Europe as some have recently suggested,” Graf explains.

The DNA work performed on the boy is the oldest complete genome of a human sequenced so far, the study shows.  Also found near the boy’s remains were flint tools, a beaded necklace and what appears to be pendant-like items, all apparently placed in the burial as grave goods.

The discovery raises new questions about the timing of human entry in Alaska and ultimately North America, a topic hotly debated in First Americans studies.

“Though our results cannot speak directly to this debate, they do indicate Native American ancestors could have been in Beringia—extreme northeastern Russia and Alaska—any time after 24,000 years ago and therefore could have colonized Alaska and the Americas much earlier than 14,500 years ago, the age suggested by the archaeological record.”

“What we need to do is continue searching for earlier sites and additional clues to piece together this very big puzzle.”
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References:

Tamu Times. 2014. “Boy’s Skeleton In Siberia Raises New Questions About First Americans”. Tamu Times. Posted: November 20, 2013. Available online: http://tamutimes.tamu.edu/2013/11/20/boys-skeleton-in-siberia-raises-new-questions-about-first-americans/#.Uq4sK4

Siberian Mummy Has Detailed Tattoos

High in the Altai mountains of Siberia, not far from the border between Russia and Mongolia, researchers have found the mummified body of a young woman covered with tattoos that archeologists say look remarkably modern.

The woman, probably about 25 years old, was buried some 2,500 years ago and found in 1993. She most likely belonged to the Pazyryk tribe, nomads who inhabited the area for centuries. Kept cold in the permafrost, she was, say the scientists, well enough preserved that one can see intricate tattoos of animals and what appear to be deities.

“Compared to all tattoos found by archeologists around the world, those on the mummies of the Pazyryk people are the most complicated and the most beautiful,” said Natalia Polosmak, the lead researcher, in an interview with The Siberian Times. “It is a phenomenal level of tattoo art. Incredible.”

The young woman has come to be known as the Ukok princess. She was buried on a remote plateau with six horses, possibly her spiritual escorts to the next world, and two men, possibly warriors. The men had tattoos, as well. Polosmak said there are older examples of tattooing — Oetzi, the famous “iceman” from 3,300 B.C. in the Italian Alps, had some short, parallel lines on his legs and lower back — but there’s been no body decoration as elaborate as what the Ukok princess had.

On her left shoulder, said Polosmak, the young woman had a depiction of a fabulous mythic animal — a deer with a griffon’s beak and a Capricorn’s antlers. On her wrist was a deer with elaborate antlers. The same deer/griffon also appeared on the body of the man found closest to the princess, covering most of the right side of his body.

The Ukok woman has been kept frozen since she was discovered. A case is now being prepared so that she can be preserved while on public display.

The tattoos were probably made of dyes made from burned plants, rich in potassium. The skin was apparently pierced with a needle or another sharp object, and rubbed with a mixture of soot and fat.

Even though the Ukok princess lived some 500 years before Jesus, Polosmak said some things have not changed.

“I think we have not moved far from Pazyryks in how the tattoos are made,” she said. “It is still about a craving to make yourself as beautiful as possible.”
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References:

Potter, Ned. 2012. "Siberian Mummy Has Detailed Tattoos". ABC News. Posted: August 16, 2012. Available online: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/08/siberian-mummy-has-tattoos/

Endangered language takes Aberdeen academic to deepest Siberia

An Aberdeen anthropologist will be braving sub-zero conditions in north-east Siberia as he embarks on a 10-month expedition to document an endangered language in the region.

Dr Alexander King and his family will relocate from Aberdeen to the remote town of Palana, on the west coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, where they will be based. He will also undertake an eight-week expedition to the more northerly reaches of Kamchatskiy Krai with two Koryak colleagues where electricity in the villages is rationed and the main mode of transport is small plane or helicopter. Dr King’s research will focus on two dialects of the Koryak language – one spoken by reindeer herders who are Chukchi people and the other by maritime people living along the coast of Penzhina Bay.

Documenting endangered languages

The project to document these languages has been funded by the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP) and it will be the first time anyone has investigated these dialects since they were first noted by linguists in 1901.

Dr King explained: “What little we know about these dialects is that they are markedly different from others in the Koryak language, which is spoken by around 2,500 people in the easternmost extremity of Siberia.

“While there has been considerable linguistic work on the dialect of Koryak used in publications and broadcast, these are two dialects that have been mostly ignored.”

“There are now only a handful of younger speakers so as a result the languages are very much endangered.”

A record must be made

Dr King maintains that it is vital that such languages are properly recorded before they die out and are lost forever.

“Indigenous peoples around the world are shifting from speaking their heritage languages to using socially dominant languages in everyday life, such as English, Spanish and Russian,” he added.

“But it is only by having careful documentation of the full span and variety of human language that we can really know what is possible and impossible in human speech and thought.”

“We have sophisticated theories about English and a handful of other European languages but we really do not know the full potential variation of the human capacity for speech.”

Dr King and his colleagues will record, transcribe and translate over 150 hours of Koryak speech across several genres using the latest methods and digital technologies.

The project will produce a database, a DVD of storytellers, and a bilingual book of narratives. It will also provide the skills and equipment for local linguists and folklorists to continue documentation work long after the project is finished and contribute to Koryak teaching and revitalisation efforts.

“The positive social effects are just as important as the science. This kind of work has been linked to successful community revitalisation programmes in other parts of the world. Pride in your heritage language means pride in yourself, and too often that is in short supply among indigenous Siberian youth.”

Language teachers

Documenting a language is a complex process that involves finding speakers who can serve as language teachers. This starts by recording words and expressions, transcribing them phonetically and then analysing the data to uncover the structure and functions of the language.

The result of this kind of documentation is often a dictionary and a grammar of the language but projects often aim to collect stories, narratives, personal histories, poetry and songs. In these cases, the performance of the material is recorded using sound or video recorders, but this too is transcribed, analysed and translated.
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References:

Past Horizons. 2012. "Endangered language takes Aberdeen academic to deepest Siberia". Past Horizons. Posted: June 27, 2012. Available online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/06/2012/endangered-language-takes-aberdeen-academic-to-deepest-siberia

Anthropologists clarify link between Asians and early Native-Americans

A tiny mountainous region in southern Siberia may have been the genetic source of the earliest Native Americans, according to new research by a University of Pennsylvania-led team of anthropologists.

Lying at the intersection of what is today Russia, Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan, the region known as the Altai "is a key area because it's a place that people have been coming and going for thousands and thousands of years," said Theodore Schurr, an associate professor in Penn's Department of Anthropology. Schurr, together with doctoral student Matthew Dulik and a team of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, collaborated on the work with Ludmila Osipova of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia.

Among the people who may have emerged from the Altai region are the predecessors of the first Native Americans. Roughly 20-25,000 years ago, these prehistoric humans carried their Asian genetic lineages up into the far reaches of Siberia and eventually across the then-exposed Bering land mass into the Americas.

"Our goal in working in this area was to better define what those founding lineages or sister lineages are to Native American populations," Schurr said.

The team's study, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, analyzed the genetics of individuals living in Russia's Altai Republic to identify markers that might link them to Native Americans. Prior ethnographic studies had found distinctions between tribes in the northern and southern Altai, with the northern tribes apparently linked linguistically and culturally to ethnic groups farther to the north, such as the Uralic or Samoyedic populations, and the southern groups showing a stronger connection to Mongols, Uighurs and Buryats.

Schurr and colleagues assessed the Altai samples for markers in mitochondrial DNA, which is maternally inherited, and in Y chromosome DNA, which is passed from fathers to sons. They also compared the samples to ones previously collected from individuals in southern Siberia, Central Asia, Mongolia, East Asia and a variety of American indigenous groups. Because of the large number of gene markers examined, the findings have a high degree of precision.

"At this level of resolution we can see the connections more clearly," Schurr said.

Looking at the Y chromosome DNA, the researchers found a unique mutation shared by Native Americans and southern Altaians in the lineage known as Q.

"This is also true from the mitochondrial side," Schurr said. "We find forms of haplogroups C and D in southern Altaians and D in northern Altaians that look like some of the founder types that arose in North America, although the northern Altaians appeared more distantly related to Native Americans."

Calculating how long the mutations they noted took to arise, Schurr's team estimated that the southern Altaian lineage diverged genetically from the Native American lineage 13,000 to 14,000 years ago, a timing scenario that aligns with the idea of people moving into the Americas from Siberia between 15,000 and 20,000 years ago.

Though it's possible, even likely, that more than one wave of people crossed the land bridge, Schurr said that other researchers have not yet been able to identify a similar geographic focal point from which Native Americans can trace their heritage.

"It may change with more data from other groups, but, so far, even with intensive work in Mongolia, they're not seeing the same things that we are," he said.

In addition to elucidating the Asia-America connection, the study confirms that the modern cultural divide between southern and northern Altaians has ancient genetic roots. Southern Altaians appeared to have had greater genetic contact with Mongolians than they did with northern Altaians, who were more genetically similar to groups farther to the north.

However, when looking at the Altaians' mitochondrial DNA in isolation, the researchers did observe greater connections between northern and southern Altaians, suggesting that perhaps females were more likely to bridge the genetic divide between the two populations.

"Subtle differences here both reflect the Altaians themselves — the differentiation among those groups — and allow us to try to point to an area where some of these precursors of American Indian lineages may have arisen," Schurr said.

Moving forward, Schurr and his team hope to continue to use molecular genetic techniques to trace the movement of peoples within Asia and into and through the Americas. They may also attempt to identify links between genetic variations and adaptive physiological responses, links that could inform biomedical research.

For example, Schurr noted that both Siberian and Native American populations "seem to be susceptible to Westernization of diet and moving away from traditional diets, but their responses in terms of blood pressure and fat metabolism and so forth actually differ."

Using genomic approaches along with traditional physical anthropology may lend insight into the factors that govern these differences.

Provided by University of Pennsylvania
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References:

Physorg. 2012. "Anthropologists clarify link between Asians and early Native-Americans". PhysOrg. Posted: January 26, 2012. Available online: http://www.physorg.com/print246803062.html

Siberia was a wildlife refuge in the last ice age

SIBERIA, a name that conjures up images of snow and ice, may have been an unlikely refuge from the bitter cold of the last ice age. Ancient DNA from the region paints a picture of remarkably stable animal and plant life in the teeth of plunging temperatures. The findings could help predict how ecosystems will adapt to future climate change.

The permanently frozen soil of Siberia, Canada and Alaska preserves the DNA of prehistoric plants, fungi and animals. "It's a giant molecular freezer," says James Haile at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia.

Glacial ice can also contain ancient DNA but permafrost is much more abundant than ice and so should provide a more complete picture of the effects of prehistoric climate change, says Haile. Last month, at the International Barcode of Life Conference in Adelaide, South Australia, his colleague Eva Bellemain of the University of Oslo in Norway revealed the first fruits of their analysis of Siberian permafrost DNA.

The samples were extracted from 15,000 to 25,000-year-old frozen sediment in southern Chukotka in north-eastern Siberia. Their age is significant: around 20,000 years ago temperatures plummeted and ice sheets blanketed much of the northern hemisphere - but parts of Siberia, Canada and Alaska apparently stayed ice-free (Quaternary Science Reviews, DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2011.07.020).

Fossils and pollen found in these regions suggest they may have acted as a refuge for plants and animals during this time, but Bellemain turned to fungal DNA to get a complete picture of the environment. Many fungi consume plants, and so indicate the plant life around at the time.

Using 23 permafrost cores, Bellemain identified around 40 fungal taxa that thrived during the last ice age. "We didn't expect to find so much," she says.

The diversity of fungi found suggests that a brimming plant community thrived in northern Siberia to support them. This range of plants should also have sustained a diverse assembly of mammals - and the samples indeed contain DNA from woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis), woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) and moose (Alces alces) dating back to between 15,000 and 25,000 years ago (Molecular Ecology, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294x.2011.05306.x).

Meanwhile, Haile and Tina Jørgensen at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark have used ancient DNA together with pollen and fossil evidence to reconstruct the plant life surrounding Lake Taymyr, on the Taymyr peninsula in northern Siberia. Using 18 cores from five sites around the lake, the team identified 66 plant taxa that stuck around from 46,000 to 12,000 years ago, even though temperatures in the region fluctuated by some 20 °C during this period. "I was surprised that the [living] environment remained stable for so long," says Jørgensen (Molecular Ecology, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294x.2011.05287.x).

The result does not surprise Gregory Retallack at the University of Oregon in Eugene, who studies plant remains in ancient soils that have been fossilised. "A part of this stability is down to the inertia of ecosystems," he says.

Haile and colleagues are now keen to analyse other samples to uncover how the prehistoric flora and fauna in Canada and Alaska were affected by climate change.

Andrew Lowe at the University of Adelaide thinks the results could be used in climate models "to tell us how future communities will change". But Retallack thinks such predictions will not be possible until we know, for example, how the flora and fauna were affected by large pulses of warming 70,000 and 125,000 years ago.
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References:

Zukerman, Wendy. 2012. "Siberia was a wildlife refuge in the last ice age ". New Scientist. Posted: January 10, 2012. Available online: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328464.900-siberia-was-a-wildlife-refuge-in-the-last-ice-age.html

Shared Genes With Neanderthal Relatives: Modern East Asians Share Genetic Material With Prehistoric Denisovans

During human evolution our ancestors mated with Neanderthals, but also with other related hominids. In this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Uppsala University are publishing findings showing that people in East Asia share genetic material with Denisovans, who got the name from the cave in Siberia where they were first found.

"Our study covers a larger part of the world than earlier studies, and it is clear that it is not as simple as we previously thought. Hybridization took place at several points in evolution, and the genetic traces of this can be found in several places in the world. We'll probably be uncovering more events like these," says Mattias Jakobsson, who conducted the study together with Pontus Skoglund.

Previous studies have found two separate hybridization events between so-called archaic humans (different from modern humans in both genetics and morphology) and the ancestors of modern humans after their emergence from Africa: hybridization between Neanderthals and the ancestors of modern humans outside of Africa and hybridization between Denisovans and the ancestors of indigenous Oceanians. The genetic difference between Neandertals and Denisovans is roughly as great as the maximal level of variation among us modern humans.

The Uppsala scientists' study demonstrates that hybridization also occurred on the East Asian mainland. The connection was discovered by using genotype data in order to obtain a larger data set. Complete genomes of modern humans are only available from some dozen individuals today, whereas genotype data is available from thousands of individuals. These genetic data can be compared with genome sequences from Neandertals and a Denisovan which have been determined from archeological material. Only a pinky finger and a tooth have been described from the latter.

Genotype data stems from genetic research where hundreds of thousands of genetic variants from test panels are gathered on a chip. However, this process leads to unusual variants not being included, which can lead to biases if the material is treated as if it consisted of complete genomes. Skoglund and Jakobsson used advanced computer simulations to determine what this source of error means for comparisons with archaic genes and have thereby been able to use genetic data from more than 1,500 modern humans from all over the world.

"We found that individuals from mainly Southeast Asia have a higher proportion of Denisova-related genetic variants than people from other parts of the world, such as Europe, America, West and Central Asia, and Africa. The findings show that gene flow from archaic human groups also occurred on the Asian mainland," says Mattias Jakobsson.

"While we can see that genetic material of archaic humans lives on to a greater extent than what was previously thought, we still know very little about the history of these groups and when their contacts with modern humans occurred," says Pontus Skoglund.

Because they find Denisova-related gene variants in Southeast Asia and Oceania, but not in Europe and America, the researchers suggest that hybridization with Denisova man took place about 20,000-40,000 years ago, but could also have occurred earlier. This is long after the branch that became modern humans split off from the branch that led to Neandertals and Denisovans some 300,000-500,000 years ago.

"With more complete genomes from modern humans and more analyses of fossil material, it will be possible to describe our prehistory with considerably greater accuracy and richer detail," says Mattias Jakobsson.
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References:

Science Daily. 2011. "Shared Genes With Neanderthal Relatives: Modern East Asians Share Genetic Material With Prehistoric Denisovans". Science Daily. Posted: October 31, 2011. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111031154119.htm

Journal Reference:

1. Pontus Skoglunda and Mattias Jakobssona. Archaic human ancestry in East Asia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1108181108

Ancient Dog Skull Shows Early Pet Domestication

33,000-year-old fossil suggests dogs arose in multiple places, study says.

It took 33,000 years, but one Russian dog is finally having its day.

The fossilized remains of a canine found in the 1970s in southern Siberia's Altay Mountains (see map) is the earliest well-preserved pet dog, new research shows.

Dogs—the oldest domesticated animals—are common in the fossil record up to 14,000 years ago. But specimens from before about 26,500 years ago are very rare. This is likely due to the onset of the last glacial maximum, when the ice sheets are at their farthest extent during an ice age.

With such a sparse historical record, scientists have been mostly in the dark as to how and when wolves evolved into dogs, a process that could have happened in about 50 to a hundred years.

"That's why our find is very important—we have a very lucky case," said study co-author Yaroslav Kuzmin, a scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk.

In the case of the Russian specimen, the animal was just on the cusp of becoming a fully domesticated dog when its breed died out.

Dogs Arose at Multiple Sites?

Kuzmin and colleagues recently used radiocarbon dating to examine the skull and jaw of the Russian dog in three independent laboratories. Each lab confirmed the fossil's age at around 33,000 years old.

Burnt twigs also found at the site, known as Razboinichya Cave, suggest that hunter-gatherers used the space for something, and it's likely the dog was their pet before its death from unknown causes, Kuzmin said.

Cold temperatures and nonacidic soil in the cave likely kept the dog's remains from completely decaying, he added.

The team compared the Russian dog fossils with the bones of wild wolves, modern wolves, domesticated dogs, and early doglike canids that lived before 26,500 years ago.

The results showed that the dog—which probably looked like a modern-day Samoyed—most closely resembled fully domesticated dogs from Greenland in size and shape. That's not to say the two dog types are related, though, since the new study didn't run DNA analysis.

Because it wasn't fully domesticated, the Russian dog retained some traits from its ancestors—namely wolf-like teeth. But the animal bore no other resemblance to ancient or modern wolves or to dog breeds from elsewhere in Russia, Kuzmin and colleagues found.

The discovery suggests that this dog began its association with humans independently from other breeds, which would mean that dog domestication didn't have a single place of origin—contrary to some DNA evidence, the study said.

Curious Wolves Went to the Dogs

In general, dogs likely became domesticated when curious wolves began to hang around Stone Age people, who left butchered food remnants littering their camps, according to study co-author Susan Crockford, an anthropologist and zooarchaeologist at the University of Victoria in Canada.

This phenomenon occurred in Europe, the Middle East, and China, according to the study, published July 28 in the journal PLoS ONE.

Animals that were more comfortable around humans underwent changes in their growth rates—probably regulated by hormones—that eventually changed their reproductive patterns, sizes, and shapes, turning them into dogs, Crockford said by email.

For example, dogs became smaller, developed wider skulls, and gave birth to bigger litters than wolves, she said.

"The somewhat curious and less fearful 'first founders' became even more so as they interbred amongst themselves," Crockford said.

Dog Domestication a Chaotic Process

Yet the process of dog domestication in Europe and Asia was chaotic, with many new breeds evolving and then dying out, study co-author Kuzmin noted.

The Russian dog was lost, for example, possibly because the advancing glacial age made hunter-gatherers even more mobile, since they had to range farther to find food.

Some experts have theorized that wolves have to stay in the same place for several decades before they evolve into fully domesticated dogs, Kuzmin said.

Indeed, "domestication is a process as opposed to an event," R. Lee Lyman, an anthropologist at the University of Missouri, Columbia, said by email. "It takes time for sufficient genetic change to occur for a population to evolve from a wild ancestral species into a descendant domestic species."

What's more, "not every evolutionary change is successful in the sense of [a] daughter population diverging from its ancestral lineage and producing a new, distinct lineage or species, domestic or not."

The study, Lyman said, "underscores [these] two important facts that archaeologists sometimes fail to appreciate."
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References:

Dell'Amore, Christine. 2011. "Ancient Dog Skull Shows Early Pet Domestication". National Geographic News. Posted: August 19, 2011. Available online: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/08/110819-dogs-wolves-russia-domestication-animals-science-evolution/

Prehistoric Dog Lived, Died Among Humans

Remains of the Husky-like dog, buried 7,000 years ago in Siberia, suggest people saw it as a thinking, social being.

Burial remains of a dog that lived over 7,000 years ago in Siberia suggest the male Husky-like animal probably lived and died similar to how humans did at that time and place, eating the same food, sustaining work injuries, and getting a human-like burial.

"Based on how northern indigenous people understand animals in historic times, I think the people burying this particular dog saw it as a thinking, social being, perhaps on par with humans in many ways," said Robert Losey, lead author of a study about the dog burial, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.

"I think the act of treating it as a human upon its death indicates that people knew it had a soul, and that the mortuary rites it received were meant to ensure that this soul was properly cared for," added Losey, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta.

For the study, Losey collaborated with excavation director Vladimir Bazaliiskii and researchers Sandra Garvie-Lok, Mietje Germonpre, Jennifer Leonard, Andrew Allen, Anne Katzenberg, and Mikhail Sablin. Bazaliiskii found the buried dog at the Shamanka cemetery near Lake Baikal, Siberia.

"Just like the humans in the cemetery, the dog was buried with other items, (such as) a long spoon made of antler," Losey said.

The dog was carefully laid to rest lying on his right side in a grave pit that, at other levels, also contained five partial human skeletons.

DNA and stable isotope analysis determined the animal was indeed a dog and that he ate exactly what humans at the site consumed: fish, freshwater seal meat, deer, small mammals, and some plant foods.

The canine's life, as well as that of the people, wasn't easy, though.

"The dog's skeleton, particularly its vertebrate spines, suggests that it was repeatedly used to transport loads," Losey explained. "This could have included carrying gear on its back that was used in daily activities like hunting, fishing, and gathering plant foods and firewood. The dog also could have been used to transport gear for the purposes of relocating settlements on a seasonal basis."

Additional fractures suggest the dog suffered numerous blows during its lifetime, possibly from the feet of red deer during hunting outings. The researchers cannot rule out that humans hit the dog, but its older age at burial, food provisions, and more suggest otherwise.

From the same general time period, the scientists also found a wolf burial at a site called Lokomotiv near the Irkut and Angara rivers in Siberia.

The wolf, which did not consume human-provided foods, appears to have died of old age. Its remains were found wrapped around a human skull. There is no evidence the wolf interacted with the person when alive.

"Perhaps the burial of the wolf with the human head placed between its feet was done to send the spirit or soul of the wolf with this particular human to the afterlife, perhaps as its protector," Losey said.

Susan Crockford, adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Victoria and author of the book "A Practical Guide to In Situ Dog Remains for the Field Archaeologist" (2009), told Discovery News that she was "surprised to see the description of the wolf/human internment," she added. "That is definitely unusual."

Crockford isn't supporting any particular interpretation of the burials just yet, however, since she said, "There can be many reasons for the ritual treatment of dogs, including ones we might never imagine."
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References:

Viegas, Jennifer. 2011. "Prehistoric Dog Lived, Died Among Humans". Discovery News. Posted: February 28, 2011. Available online: http://news.discovery.com/animals/ancient-dog-burial-siberia-110228.html