Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew with another weekly batch of top news stories that appeared on Archaeologica.  Send us feedback on The Archaeology Channel Facebook page or post a message on our social networking site, ArchaeoSeek!

A new study of ancient dog DNA makes use of now-extinct dog genomes to fill out the complex and fascinating story of humans and dogs.  A new summary of Mississippian culture tells how migrants from Cahokia in the central Mississippi Valley brought their culture to new places and adapted to new surroundings.  Research at a Bronze Age site in southeast Turkey illustrates how humans can find new solutions to stressful conditions.  And a signet ring image of Apollo from the Jerusalem of 2000 years ago reflects a cosmopolitan rather than a simply conservative city.

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And now, here’s Laura Pettigrew with the Audio News from Archaeologica.  We hope you find this to be a valuable part of your day.

Welcome to the Audio News from Archaeologica!  I’m Laura Pettigrew and these are the headlines in archaeological and historical news from October 25th through the 31st, 2020.

In our first story this week, we’re highlighting a study of ancient dog DNA that expands the understanding of canine evolution, implying that these animals sometimes followed along as humans migrated, but that wasn’t always the case.

The report details the largest-ever study of ancient dog genomes, and it comes to us from the website Nature.com.  The work was published originally by the journal, Science.

The research identifies major regional shifts in human ancestry which left little mark on dog populations, as well as periods when the canine evolutionary path shifted independently from that of humans.

Dogs might have moved freely, occasionally following humans, or perhaps they moved between groups of people when it suited their interests, ultimately supporting their own species’ survival.

According to study co-leader Pontus Skoglund, a population geneticist with the Francis Crick Institute in London, the analysis of dog genomes could account for parts of human prehistory that ancient human DNA cannot.  

The new analysis of Eurasian dog genomes suggests that dogs were domesticated and became widespread around the world well before 11,000 years ago. 

However, the researchers are careful to avoid any date inference or relationship regarding the domestication of wolves.

Previously, only six ancient dog genomes had been studied.  To expand the pool of dog DNA, Skoglund’s lab joined existing groups led by Greger Larson, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Oxford, and Ron Pinhasi, an archaeologist with the University of Vienna.  

This team eventually sequenced 27 ancient dog genomes, examining samples from Europe, the Middle East, and Siberia, with radiocarbon dates ranging between 11,000 and 100 years old.

Using computer modeling, the researchers examined underlying genetic relationships between ancient and modern dog DNA samples.  This technique determined that a 10,900-year-old Russian dog was genetically distinct from later European, Middle Eastern, Siberian and American dogs.

Ancient Middle Eastern dogs that lived around 7,000 years ago have now been linked to modern dogs in sub-Saharan Africa, whose presence may be connected to human movements that occurred around the same time.

However, the histories of humans and dogs haven’t always overlapped.  For example, a major influx of people from the steppes of Russia and Ukraine 5,000 years ago led to lasting change in the genetic make-up of Europe’s humans, but not, it appears, in its dogs.  

Why wouldn’t new people bring new dogs?  The cause of this disconnect is still a mystery, according to Angela Perri, a zooarchaeologist at Durham University in the UK.  It could have been for reasons ranging from the introduction of new diseases to cultural preference.  Whatever the case, further advances in exploring this question will require a larger sample of old dog genomes.

Almost one thousand years ago an expansive city flourished in the bottomlands of the Mississippi River, across the waters from the current location of St. Louis, Missouri, and at its peak it was one of the largest pre-Columbian cities constructed north of the later Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, which is now Mexico City.

Archaeologists now call this largely forgotten city Cahokia, and refer to the societies that lived in the Mississippi River Valley region as “Mississippian cultures,” collectively noted for both earthen mound-building and corn farming.

Their habitat stretched as far west as Oklahoma, north to Wisconsin, south towards Mississippi and Louisiana, and east as far as Florida and North Carolina.  While broadly similar in genetic makeup and cultural practice, it is unlikely that Mississippian settlements comprised a unified political body.

A complex question in American archaeology hinges on how these cultures arose, and the ways in which they traveled, traded goods and interacted with other people.  New research to understand what it might have meant to be both a Cahokian, and a Mississippian, has recently been published on the website, The Conversation.

Early in its history, movements into and out of the city may have been linked to religious gatherings, while later migrations out of the city may have been more closely related to socio-political changes.  

While some evidence points to conflict, and also to potential drought in the region, archaeologists have no conclusive evidence that either of these issues were the ultimate reason why some people moved away from the city while others stayed behind.

However, it is clear that as they migrated throughout the woodlands east of the Mississippi River, they took their shared culture with them.  In some cases these were unique artifacts, and in others they were more abstract concepts such as spiritual beliefs about the ordering of the cosmos.

At sites like these, Cahokians embraced the new environments into which they immigrated, bringing their distinct cultural style to existing communities.  

Evidence of these expanding relationships has been found during archaeological excavations, which revealed that traditional households, site layouts and pottery were integrated into new communities.

During the early days of Cahokia, around AD 1050, emissaries from the city traveled north to sites in what is now Wisconsin, spurring the construction there of platform mounds and sculpted landscapes similar to those found closer to the Cahokian heartland.

In northeast Florida, migrants encountered local communities of St. Johns people, the mound builders of sites such as Grant, Shields and Mt. Royal.  Archaeologists now refer to the architecture of the two combined groups as the Mill Cove Complex.

Another example exists at the Carson Site in northern Mississippi, where migrants recreated familiar surroundings by constructing the long, rectangular and semi-subterranean dwellings also found at Cahokia.

The Mississippian example of diaspora is one of many instances in which people brought their culture into a new place and adapted it to meet the needs of a new situation.  It’s an example that has applications for us in the modern world.

Our next story takes us to Turkey, where evidence suggests that the challenges presented by climate change, which have at times stressed societies beyond their breaking point, were in this case met with human resilience and ingenuity.

The study, published on-line by the journal PLOS One, details the analysis of fine-scale archaeological data collected from Tell Tayinat, which lies in the northernmost portion of the Levant, near the Syrian border.

Here, local populations were able to adapt, and even flourish, in the face of two periods of climate change which occurred between 4,500 and 3,000 years ago.  

Using radiocarbon dating analysis, researchers created a highly detailed timeline of societal activity at Tayinat before, during and after these two distinct periods of change.

An important aspect of the study was to contrast the existing evidence of human occupation at Tayinat with other known settlements nearby, such as Tell Atchana, where evidence indicates that the city was abandoned and then repopulated at a later date.

Lead author Tim Harrison is the director of the Tayinat Archaeological Project and a professor of archaeology at the University of Toronto.  His study indicates that the end of Early Bronze Age occupation at Tayinat, which occurred some 4,200 years ago, was the culmination of a long decline that likely began much earlier in time, rather than being a direct or causal result of a simultaneous drought.

Researchers found archaeological evidence of local political and spatial reconfiguration, but no evidence of drought stress in the crop evidence.  This stands in stark contrast to more common existing narratives, which have typically assumed that the society suffered some type of catastrophic climate-related collapse.

Some of the earliest known city and state-level societies were established in the Levant and surrounding Middle East during the mid-to late Early Bronze Age, between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and in the Late Bronze Age, between 1600 and 1200 B.C.

According to co-author Sturt Manning, a professor of classical archaeology at Cornell University, the absolute dating of each of these periods has been a subject of considerable debate for several decades.

The more robust archaeological timelines produced by this research team have revealed a period of resettlement and heightened societal activity some 3,200 years ago, in spite of a coincidental period of increased aridity and cooler overall temperatures.

According to Harrison, existing crop evidence reveals the continued cultivation of water-demanding crops for consumption by both livestock and humans, revealing a response that opposes the notion of a drought-stricken region in retreat.  

The researchers note that the presence of natural aquifers may have encouraged re-habitation in the region during extended periods of less rain, allowing crops and livestock to survive, and ultimately extending the human occupation of Tell Tayinat.  

This seems to be another example of resourceful human adaptation under stress and a lesson we should keep in mind today.

The Times of Israel reported the discovery of a 2,000-year-old gemstone engraved with the Greek sun god, Apollo, providing additional evidence of a pluralistic Jewry occupying Jerusalem during the Second Temple period from 516 BC to AD 70.

Measuring 13 millimeters long, 11 millimeters wide and 3 millimeters thick, the piece of brown jasper containing yellow and white layers was once part of an intaglio, or signature ring.

The engraved portrait depicts an individual with long, flowing hair reaching to the shoulder, braided above the forehead and spilling down over a sturdy neck. The facial features include a large nose and thick lips, with a small, yet prominent, chin.  

The intact ring was likely used along with beeswax, or some other soft material, to seal important documents or traded goods that required certification.  The public use of the image for this purpose implies that the symbol had widespread acceptance among the citizenry.

Archaeologist Eli Shukron, formerly with Israel’s Antiquity Authority, has no doubt that it represents a likeness of Apollo, and is also convinced that the ring would have adorned a Jewish person’s finger.  

He further believes that this choice, an image of a Greco-Roman god, indicates Jerusalem at the time wasn't necessarily ultra-Orthodox, but rather a place where a variety of beliefs were allowed.  

Several previously known artifacts, already dated to the Second Temple period, also depict what is believed to be Apollo, who was traditionally associated with sunlight, well-being and success.

Co-author Professor Shua Amorai-Stark, a researcher of engraved gems, noted that at the end of the Second Temple period, Apollo was one of the most popular and revered deities in eastern Mediterranean regions.  

Shukron noted that, during the Roman period, some other members of the Greek and Roman pantheon make brief appearances in artifacts, but in the period around 2000 years ago, only Apollo has been found.  

The existence of this gemstone provides a link between Jewish people of two millennia ago and those of today.  It was discovered under the direction of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, as part of their Archaeological Sifting Project at Tzurim Valley National Park.

Using earth taken from ongoing excavation from the foundations of the Western Wall in the City of David, the project had originally allowed members of the public to participate under the supervision of trained archaeologists.  For now, however, the mostly volunteer Tzurim Valley project is on hold due to concerns about the spread of Covid-19.

That wraps up the news for this week! 

For more stories, links and daily updates please visit Archaeologica on the World Wide Web at www.archaeologica.org, where all the news is history!

I'm Laura Pettigrew and I'll see you next week!