Welcome back, everybody!  I’m Rick Pettigrew, and I’m back, too.  Get ready for another batch of four top news stories from this past week of Archaeologica.  Send us feedback on The Archaeology Channel Facebook page or post a message on our social networking site, ArchaeoSeek!

An ambitious new study of 10,000 years of human history addresses the big question about whether social inequality is an inevitable product of population growth.  Examination of modified human bone from pre-contact south Texas shows that handling human remains was not strictly or universally taboo.  Two new genetic and morphological studies about the origin of domestic cats in western Europe agree that these cuddly animals came originally from Tunisia just over 2000 years ago.  And a tree-ring study in England seems to show that a three-year drought in late-Roman Britain set the stage for an invasion by three so-called barbarian peoples that weakened Rome’s hold on the island.

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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 April 13th through the 19th, 2025.

Our first story this week takes us across a thousand settlements in Mesoamerica, North America, Europe, and Asia in a quest to understand the nature of social inequality. 

As reported by LiveScience, researchers analyzed more than fifty thousand houses dating from the last ten thousand years as a part of The Global Dynamics Inequality or GINI Project.  One measure the researchers used was the size of houses. Another was the advent of farming.  

The common belief had been that social inequality grew as the population grew.  Now, archaeologists have learned that this idea isn’t true for every situation. 

According to Gary Feinman, professor of archaeology and the MacArthur Curator of Mesoamerican, Central American and East Asian Anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago, some researchers believed that inequality began when farming started and the very wealthy began to hoard surplus crops the workers harvested.  Current research, however, paints a different picture.

While measuring the evolution and factors of inequality is difficult, archaeologists have begun to develop quantitative measures of the social structures at different sites—data that can then be compared across geographies and times.  

Modern societies use the GINI coefficient, a number between 0 and 1.  Zero represents everyone having the same wealth, while one represents one person having all the wealth.  Using differences in house sizes, archaeologists used this approach to calculate a coefficient for each site.  They then used statistical analysis to compare the sites’ GINI scores with the political complexity of each society.  

After comparing the patterns in GINI values of  government structures, the researchers concluded that historical inequality doesn’t happen the same way everywhere, and that social inequality doesn’t naturally increase as populations and governments grow.  Instead,  it’s the choices that humans make about how to distribute wealth that keeps social disparities under control.  

Feinman noted that these leveling mechanisms vary greatly over time and space.  Some societies used taxation systems that redistributed or dispersed highly concentrated wealth.  Others redistributed the wealth of the dead and canceled their debt.  In ancient Athens, the wealthy were expected to fund public works and public festivals.  

This research indicates that social inequality wasn’t inevitable or natural in ancient times. Instead, human choices were the deciding factor.  

“The study appeared in the journal PNAS.

Next, we go to south Texas, where archaeologists have reanalyzed twenty-nine bones uncovered at various sites in the area.  These bones, mainly the long bones of the arms and legs,  have clearly been modified.

As reported by Phys.org, a researcher in 1932 reported the appearance of modified bones. Another reported a case of modified bones in 1969.  Until now, these bones have undergone little analysis or interpretation.  

According to a study by Dr. Matthew S. Taylor published in the journal Osteoarchaeology, some historical accounts record the processing of human bodies, but not in the same way as the south Texas bones.  While a similar processing technique is recorded in other places in the Americas, it’s less understood in this region.  

The south Texas bones had been defleshed and then left out to dry.  They then underwent a groove-and-snap technique, which involved cutting a groove in the bone until it weakened its structure enough to snap it in two.  

Ancestor worship and the creation of war trophies were the most common reasons for modifying human bones.  In 1528, the Spaniard Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca was shipwrecked in the Gulf of Mexico.  After living with Gulf Coast natives, he described how some tribal members cremated the bones of holy men, mixed them with water, and drank the mixture.  This ritual may have been a type of ancestor worship.  

No direct evidence shows this practice being performed. along the South Texas coast.  If nothing else, the human bone artifacts serve as evidence that early peoples on the Gulf coast didn’t view human bodies or the modification of human remains as taboo.  

Researchers performed this analysis in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.  The Comanche Nation, the Caddo Nation, the Mescalero Tribe, and the Kiowa Tribe were also consulted about remains from the Gulf Coast. 

Our third story takes us to the University of Rome Tor Vergata and the University of Exeter, where researchers are performing two large-scale investigations into the origins of the domestic cat.  Both studies appeared in the journal bioRXiv [BYE -oh-AR-kive] and point to Tunisia as the likely site.  

As reported by Phys.org, researchers who study the origin of cats usually believe they traveled with early farmers during the Neolithic period.  But the timing and circumstances of their domestication are unclear.  The most common belief is that rodents living in settled communities attracted wild cats.  

For many years, cats have posed a mystery to archaeologists.  Their skeletal structure and commonly used mitochondrial DNA markers greatly overlap with those of undomesticated cats.  Through a combination of zooarchaeological analysis, genetic identification and radiocarbon dating, the research team was able to redefine the established chronology of the cat’s domestication and dispersal across Europe.  

Results from the current DNA analyses show that felines with domestic ancestry appeared in Europe beginning only around the first century BC onward — thousands of years later than originally thought.  Although the two studies differ in the suggested arrival dates and dispersal patterns of domestic cats, both studies agree that felines arrived more recently than expected.  They also agree that the spread of cats was not random.  

After analyzing 2,416 feline bones at 206 sites and cross-referencing morphological data with genetic findings, the teams concluded that cats had already appeared in Europe in the centuries before the height of Roman expansion.   This challenges the idea that cats were common in much older Neolithic settlements.  It also shows that relying solely on mitochondrial markers can conceal the full story of feline domestication.  

Cats didn’t trail into civilization behind farmers in the field.  Quite the opposite.  They moved into Europe from North Africa in multiple waves after being domesticated.  In some cultures, including that of Egypt, people revered cats as deities.  

The movement of cats from Tunisia into Europe was intentional.  Cultural practices, trade networks and religious beliefs motivated ancient people to domesticate wild cats and incorporate them into daily life.  

We end this week in Roman Britain, where researchers are revisiting the so-called  “Barbarian Conspiracy,”  a decisive moment in Roman Britain’s history, with a new study revealing that a three-year drought contributed to this historical event.  

As reported by Phys.org, and published in the journal Climatic Change, researchers now propose that in AD 367, three tribes, the Picts, the Scots and the Saxons, timed an invasion around an extreme period of drought that contributed to famine and societal breakdown, inflicting deadly blows to the already struggling Romans.  

Sources from the time record that some of the soldiers at Hadrian’s wall rebelled and allowed the Picts to attack by land and sea.  At the same time, the Scots—from modern-day Ireland—attacked from the west.  Senior Roman commanders were captured or killed.  Other soldiers reportedly deserted and joined the invading tribes.  It took two years and several generals to restore order.  Some historians believe that the area never fully recovered.  

According to Professor Ulf Büntgen of Cambridge's Department of Geography, findings show that southern Britain experienced three extremely dry summers from AD 364 to 366.  The researchers used tree-ring records to reconstruct temperature and precipitation levels in southern Britain during and after this time.  These dry spells would have had a devastating impact on Roman Britain’s most valuable agricultural region. 

Researchers used accounts from Roman chroniclers to support the tree-ring records.  In 367, Ammianus Marcellinus described Britain’s population as in “the utmost conditions of famine.”  Poor crop production would have greatly reduced the grain supply to Hadrian’s Wall.  This could explain the reason for the rebellion that allowed the Picts into northern Britain.  It’s possible that famine in other regions accelerated attacks from invading tribes.

Grain deficits may have contributed to other desertions during this period and caused a general weakening of the Roman army.  With the army so vulnerable and Roman Britain so isolated, Rome simply couldn’t remedy the situation.  

While researchers believe that the military and societal breakdown of Rome contributed to its downfall, prolonged and extreme droughts weakened resilience and opened the way for invasion.  Tatiana Bebchuk of Cambridge's Department of Geography points out that the relationship between climate and conflict is just as relevant today.  Extreme climatic conditions cause hunger and challenges to society that eventually lead to open conflict.  

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! Also, be sure to check out our growing subscription platform, Heritage Broadcasting Service, at heritagetac.org!

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