Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew.  As you’ll hear, some great news stories appeared on Archaeologica this past week!  Send us feedback on The Archaeology Channel Facebook page or post a message on our social networking site, ArchaeoSeek!

A new study of chromosomal DNA in South America suggests that people arrived there earlier than what is commonly accepted.  A Neolithic burial site in western England has yielded the largest prehistoric collection of glass-like rock crystals found so far. Skulls of Black Philadelphians held by the Penn Museum and publicly displayed in a classroom soon will get a proper burial.  And parasite eggs in the burials of Medieval monks in Cambridge, England, may be the consequence of unsanitary agricultural practices.

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And now, here’s Laura Kennedy 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 Kennedy, and these are the headlines in archaeological and historical news for the week of August 14th through the 20th, 2022. 

Our first story this week brings us to South America, where genetic research has provided new evidence regarding the timeline of human migration to the continent. 

As reported by Nature World News and Phys.org, a number of studies over the last several years have used genetics to map the migration patterns of humankind.  However, significant missing genetic data from South America has prevented researchers from completing the global picture of early human migration.

It is commonly believed that prehistoric people first traveled to the Americas using a land connection from Siberia, called the Bering Land Bridge, before traveling south and gradually populating both continents.  The approximate timeline for this migration has commonly been placed between 14,000 and 17,000 years ago.  Past studies of bones and tools left behind by these populations have reinforced this idea, although evidence of an earlier human arrival seems to be getting stronger.

A new study utilizing genetic data is also pointing to an earlier date.  The study was carried out by researchers from a number of Argentine institutions and funded by Argentina’s National Council for Scientific and Technical Research.

The researchers in this study examined chromosomal evidence from thirteen individuals living in Argentina to determine ancient humans’ migration patterns in this region.  The subjects are believed to be descended from ancient migrants to South America and grouped into a classification called the Q Haplogroup. 

Researchers studied these individuals’ Y chromosomes to establish a timeline of migration, focusing on elements of non-recombinant DNA contained within the Y chromosome, which is passed down through male offspring,  to identify how long the ancient DNA features have been present. 

The team then compared those data with samples collected from 80 other people belonging to the Q Haplogroup who lived in other places around the world.  This allowed them to estimate the length of time people have been living in South America based on characteristics they still have today.  

Based on this methodology, the researchers have proposed a new timeline for the time when humans arrived on the continent—approximately 18,000 years ago. 

Beyond that, the study suggests that major environmental changes such as the cooling that took place during the Younger Dryas period—around 12,000 to 13,000 years ago—may have affected indigenous American lineages as well, potentially causing a substantial loss of genetic diversity.

The study appeared this month in the journal PLOS One.

Our next story this week takes us to western England, where archaeologists have dug up a collection of hundreds of fragments of a rare transparent type of quartz called "rock crystal" at a ceremonial site dating to around 6,000 years ago.

As reported by LiveScience.com, archaeologists from the University of Manchester were excavating the site of Dorstone Hill, near the border with Wales, when they unearthed more than 300 quartz crystal fragments.

The stones were concentrated in burial mounds, with many of the largest fragments deliberately placed inside burial pits containing cremated human remains.  Due to this, researchers believe the stones held some spiritual or ritualistic significance to the people who lived in this area.

As rock crystal has no local sources, researchers believe it was brought from over 80 miles away, across rough terrain, before being carefully broken into smaller pieces during a spiritual ceremony of some kind.

Quartz crystal is triboluminescent, giving off flashes of light when struck.  The stones would have been rare during the Neolithic, a time with no glass and few similar transparent materials. 

The findings are the largest collection of human-modified rock crystal pieces ever found in Britain and Ireland.  More research will be needed to determine the material’s role in trade as well as how ancient peoples may have thought of the stone interacted with it. 

Dorstone Hill is the site of the "Halls of the Dead," three timber buildings that were burned down and replaced by three earthen burial mounds in Neolithic times, likely after the death of a local leader.

The site sits approximately a mile south of Arthur’s Stone, another prominent early Neolithic burial site near the Welsh border.

Legend links Arthur's Stone to the mythical King Arthur, though the site would have already been thousands of years old by the time he was alive, if he ever existed at all. 

The research appeared last month in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 

Our third story this week takes us to Philadelphia, where efforts to arrange the burial of the skeletal remains of Black Philadelphians, long held at the University of Pennsylvania, may soon come to a conclusion. 

As reported by CNN, this reburial effort arose from racial justice activism following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.  This led the Penn Museum to take a close look at its colonial history and practices, particularly surrounding the collection of human remains.  Efforts notably focused on the Museum’s Morton Cranial Collection, which includes over 1,300 cranial remains, including those of 13 Black Philadelphians as well as some enslaved people from Cuba. 

The Morton Cranial Collection has been housed by the Penn Museum since 1966 and originated as part of the personal collection of Samuel George Morton, a scientist whose work in the 1830s and 1840s contributed greatly to the practice of  “phrenology,” a racist pseudoscience focused on measuring bumps on the skull to predict mental traits.  

Phrenology, including the work of Morton, became an element of eugenics movements in the United States and, most famously, in Nazi Germany. 

In 2020, the remains of these former Black Philadelphians and enslaved peoples from Cuba were relocated from a classroom to storage.  Christopher Woods, who had recently taken on the role as the Museum’s director, formally apologized for what he called the unethical possession of human remains by the Museum. 

While Woods believes it is the Museum and the University’s responsibility to oversee the burial efforts for these remains, some activists in Philadelphia have disagreed.

Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, a lifelong Philadelphia native, community activist and member of the community advisory group, filed a formal objection noting that, while they don't disagree with the reburial of the remains, the community is concerned that the process has been rushed with a lack of input from descendant communities.

The Penn Museum is petitioning the Philadelphia Orphans' Court for permission to rebury the skulls in Eden Cemetery, a historic Black cemetery just outside Philadelphia, during a public, interfaith ceremony this fall. 

Many in both the academic and greater communities hope that, regardless of the specifics, such reburial efforts can serve as a model for other communities grappling with issues of racial reconciliation and repatriation.

For our final story this week, we return to England, where recent research on the bones of Medieval monks has found that they suffered from a much higher rate of parasites than the average population at the time. 

As reported by the Smithsonian Magazine, scientists unearthed centuries-old parasite eggs alongside monk skeletons in the private graveyard of a friary below the University of Cambridge. 

Cambridge’s Augustinian friary was founded in the 1280s and was a leading center for the reading and study of manuscripts.  The institution hosted clergy from across Britain and Europe until 1538, when King Henry the Eighth broke the relationship with the Catholic Church and founded the Church of England. 

Researchers from the University of Cambridge compared the number of parasites found with the friars to the typical number of parasites found among commoners of the same era in a nearby Cambridge cemetery, discovering that the friars were afflicted with intestinal worms at almost double the rate of Cambridge’s general population.  This was despite the fact that many of the city’s inhabitants lived with almost no sanitary facilities, especially compared to the accommodations of the friary. 

Despite their vows of poverty, Augustinian friars of Medieval Britain built monasteries with a relatively high standard of communal living.  The buildings featured stone and glass work, libraries and gardens.  Friaries typically featured dedicated latrines and hand-washing facilities, complete with running water systems that often surpassed even those in wealthy households. 

Researchers expected that, if any difference existed in the rate of intestinal parasites, it would have been the monks who were better off.  They instead found the opposite.

The team speculated that this was likely due to fertilizer practices that were common at the friary, but not necessarily typical of the general population.  Monks probably used their own excrement as a form of fertilizer,  contributing to the spread of infection with parasites. 

The study, published in the International Journal of Paleopathology, is the first to compare parasite abundance among individuals who lived different lifestyles in the same Medieval community.  Such studies can lend themselves to helping modern humans understand how parasites and disease can best be addressed, controlled and managed.  

That wraps up the news for this week!

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

I’m Laura Kennedy and I’ll see you next week!