Welcome back, everybody!  I’m 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 reportedly demonstrates that human hunting pressure accelerated the demise of the woolly mammoth in Eurasia .  Another LiDAR study in Central America appears to show that some Maya kingdoms deliberately intensified agriculture to produce a surplus.  Chemical analysis of human bones in Spain shows very high levels of mercury during the Copper Age.  And a chronological comparison of volcanic eruptions and dynastic collapses in China appears to show a strong linkage.

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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 for the week of November 14th through the 20th, 2021.

Our first story this week details a study which reveals a 20,000-year pathway to extinction for the woolly mammoth. 

As reported by the website ScienceDaily, this new research from an international team of scientists shows definitively that human activities played a significant role in the population collapse of the massive mammals.

Led by researchers from the University of Adelaide and University of Copenhagen, the study was recently published in the journal Ecology Letters. 

According to the authors, the research shows that humans were a crucial and chronic driver of population declines, having an essential role in both the timing and location of the mammoth’s extinction.

Using computer models, fossils and ancient DNA, the team identified the types of mechanisms and threats that were integral to the initial decline and later extinction of the woolly mammoth.

Signatures of past changes in the distribution and demography of woolly mammoths 

in some regions show that people hastened the extinction of woolly mammoths by up to 4,000 years. 

The study also shows that woolly mammoths are likely to have survived in the Arctic for thousands of years longer than previously thought.

The animals did so by existing in small areas of habitat with suitable climatic conditions and low densities of humans. 

This finding of long-term persistence in Eurasia independently confirms recently published environmental DNA evidence showing that woolly mammoths were roaming around Siberia as recently as 5,000 years ago.

Humans exploited woolly mammoths for their meat, skins and bones.  However, it has been difficult to disentangle the exact roles that climate warming and human hunting had on the rate of extinction. 

The analyses here support the case for human impacts as a driver of population declines and range collapses of megafauna across Eurasia during the late Pleistocene. 

It also refutes a prevalent hypothesis that climate change alone decimated woolly mammoth populations, instead demonstrating that species extinctions are usually the result of complex interactions between threatening processes. 

The researchers emphasize that the pathway to extinction for the woolly mammoth was long and lasting, starting many millennia before the final extinction event.

Next, we go to Central America, where new research technology has revealed evidence of Maya agricultural practices buried beneath the jungles of the upper Usumacinta River basin of Mexico and Guatemala.

As reported on SciNews.com, archaeologists using high-resolution airborne LiDAR data have found extensive irrigation systems and terraced fields in and outside three ancient Classic period Maya kingdoms here.

According to Dr. Andrew Scherer, an anthropologist with Brown University, a common misconception about the Maya is that rapid growth and unsustainable agricultural practices set them up for societal collapse. 

These narratives postulate that as the Maya population grew too large, their agriculture scaled up too quickly, and soon afterwards everything fell apart.

The findings appear in the journal Remote Sensing, and suggest that by the Late Classic Period the areas were actually capable of producing more food than their residents were consuming.  

The main agricultural crop of the Maya was corn, or maize.

The Late Classic Period of Maya civilization lasted from around AD 600 to 900, and during this time people began relocating from more formal urban centers into the countryside.

To better understand the archaeological history, Dr. Scherer and colleagues surveyed a rectangle of land connecting the three Maya kingdoms of Piedras Negras, La Mar and Lacanja Tzeltal.

The researchers also reviewed textual inscriptions carved into stone monuments, which provided details on some of the cultural interactions between these and other kingdoms.

Despite being only 24 kilometers away from one another, the three sites had widely divergent population sizes and governing power structures.

The LiDAR data collected from drones and piloted aircraft revealed signs of long-term agricultural intensification.  This provides evidence that the land had been repeatedly modified over time to increase crop volume and predictability.

Agricultural intensification methods in these areas included the construction of water management systems, with earthen dams holding water reserves to irrigate their fields.

Excess crops could have been sold at market, or traded for goods and services between kingdoms.

The analyses presented here build on a decade of research in the neotropics and elsewhere, demonstrating the unprecedented ability of LiDAR to penetrate dense jungle canopies.

The evidence of long-term agricultural infrastructure in an area with relatively low population density suggests that these Maya kingdoms had a deliberate and systematic agricultural plan for addressing the needs of their residents.

Our third story takes us to southern Spain, where researchers from the University of Seville have published a groundbreaking investigation into ancient mercury poisoning. 

As reported by the news website Phys.org, the results reveal that the highest levels of mercury exposure occurred at the beginning of the Copper Age, between 2900 and 2600 BC. 

A team of specialists in biology, chemistry, physical anthropology, and archaeology has contributed to the study, which was recently published in the International Journal of Osteoarcheology.

This is the largest study ever conducted on the presence of mercury in human bone, using hundreds of samples from archaeological sites in Spain and Portugal dating as far back as the Neolithic.

Levels of mercury of up to 400 parts per million were recorded in the bones of some of these individuals.  For reference, the World Health Organization currently advises that the normal levels of mercury found in hair should not be higher than one or two parts per million.

Cinnabar is a mineral containing mercury sulfide that turns into a crimson powder when pulverized.  People have long used this substance to produce pigments for dyes and paints, and it was widely exploited across Iberia beginning around 7000 years ago. 

In southern Portugal and Andalusia, Cinnabar powder was used to paint megalithic chambers, decorate figurines, and to honor the dead during funeral ceremonies.  As a result of these uses, many people were exposed to toxic levels of mercury.  The high quantities found in these bones suggest these people would have suffered severe physical and mental health impacts during their lifetimes.

The quantities found are so high that the study discusses the possibility that Copper Age Iberians may have deliberately consumed or inhaled cinnabar during ceremonial practices.

We end this week in China, where a new study examines the link of Chinese dynastic collapses to periodic volcanic eruptions across the region.  As reported on SciNews,com, the study shows that one or more volcanic eruptions preceded 62 of 68 dynastic collapses in China during the past 2,000 years.

The new study appears in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

In the study, Dr. Chaochao Gao of Zhejiang University and colleagues reconstructed 156 explosive volcanic eruptions from AD 1 to 1915 by examining elevated sulfate levels in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctic.

The team analyzed documents from China on 68 dynasties, and also examined historical accounts of warfare there between 850 and 1911.  The number of precisely dated collapses during this time period allowed the researchers to look for patterns.  They found that 62 of the 68 dynastic collapses in China were closely preceded by at least one volcanic eruption.

Smaller volcanic impacts to the climate may have caused dynasties to collapse when political and socioeconomic stress was already high.  Larger eruptions may have created adverse conditions that led to collapses even without substantial pre-existing stress. 

According to co-author Dr. John Matthews, of Trinity College Dublin, even a small volcanic eruption might help trigger a collapse when pre-existing instability was high.  Other factors contributing to these collapses include poor leadership, administrative corruption and demographic pressures.

The rise and fall of Chinese imperial dynasties have often been retold as the story of a cycle.  In such narratives, dynasties proceeded through a period of virtue and vigor before a decline and collapse which is often credited to the immorality and corruption of their leaders.

According to Dr. Gao, socioeconomic and demographic pressures, mass migrations and population displacements brought about in part by volcanic disasters contributed to the repeated collapses. 

Mismanagement of natural resources, environmental degradation and climate changes are now more often stressed as causal factors.  Now we can add to that the environmental disruption caused by volcanic eruptions.

Climate stress created by volcanic activity is considered to have been of particular importance to the collapses of the Tang, Yuan and Ming Dynasties. 

That wraps up the news for this week!