Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew with a summary of our four fascinating 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!

Our stories this time cover the apparently long isolation of early humans in southern Africa; new evidence about cat domestication; differential human sacrifice of men and women in ancient China; and the excavation of a pre-contact Mexican breakaway group in Mexico City.

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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 November 30th through December 6th, 2025

Our first story this week comes from southern Africa, where a new genetic study provides a clearer look at early human history, showing how southern Africans lived in isolation for almost 100,000 years.  Because they remained isolated for so long, this population developed genetic traits unseen in people today.

As reported by Live Science, the team of researchers sequenced DNA from 28 ancient individuals who lived between 225 and 10,275 years ago.  All of the remains came from archaeological sites south of the Limpopo River, which begins in South Africa and flows eastward towards the Indian Ocean.  The team compared the ancient genomes with DNA from many ancient and modern groups across Africa, Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania.

These data show that people living in southern Africa more than 1400 years ago had very different genetic patterns.  In comparison to modern humans, they show extreme genetic variation.  This suggests that the region stayed isolated for thousands of years.  The dry land and difficult terrain north of the Zambezi River, which flows into the Indian Ocean north of the Limpopo, may have limited movement and kept early communities apart.

The researchers call this pattern the ancient southern African ancestry component.  They found no clear sign of genetic mixing with outside groups until around AD 550, when farmers from the north began forming families with local foragers.  This finding contradicts previous studies that indicate long-term interactions connecting eastern, southern and western Africa.

Prehistoric southern Africa contains half of global human genetic variation, so these genomes can indicate important genetic variants.  Researchers found several gene variants linked to kidney function and neuron growth.  These traits may have helped early humans survive dry conditions and may offer clues about changes in early human behavior.  The results support the idea that modern humans descend from many small groups, each contributing different genetic features.

The study appeared in the journal Nature.

Next we go to Europe to look at one of our favorite animals, where a new study of ancient DNA shows how domestic cats first arrived from northern Africa at least 2000 years ago.  This finding challenges previous notions that cats spread to Europe 6000 years ago with Neolithic farmers.

As reported by ConnectSci, researchers studied 87 ancient and modern cat genomes.  These genomes included DNA from 70 archaeological cat remains from Europe and Anatolia between 9000 BC and the nineteenth century.  The team compared these ancient samples with genomes from modern wildcats from Italy, Bulgaria, Morocco, and Tunisia.

The results tell a clear story.  All ancient cats older than about 200 BC look genetically like European wildcats, not domestic cats.  Domestic cats, who originated from the African wildcat currently found in North Africa and the Near East, only began to appear around the second century BC.  These early domestic cats spread surprisingly fast through Europe, often moving with Roman soldiers and traders.  They reached Britain by around AD 100.

The research also shows that modern domestic cats in Europe are more closely related to northern African wildcats than to wildcats from the Levant.  This finding suggests that domestication happened in or near northern Africa, where people already kept cats as pets thousands of years ago.  Art from ancient Egypt, for example, shows families living closely with cats around 3500 years ago.

However, the full picture is still unclear.  Archaeologists rarely find cat bones, and ancient cat skeletons are identical to wildcat skeletons.  The study also lacked ancient DNA from Africa and southwest Asia, where cat domestication likely began.  The researchers say that more samples, especially from Egypt, are needed before they can confirm the timelines.

Even with these gaps, the study gives us a more precise view of how cats moved across the ancient world.  It shows how quickly humans adopted them and brought them into new lands.

The study appeared in the journal Science.

Our third story this week takes us to northern China, where archaeologists studying the large Stone Age site of Shimao have found clear evidence that men and women were sacrificed for different purposes about 3800 to 4300 years ago.  The discovery shows how organized and structured this ancient society was, and how strongly gender roles shaped its rituals.

As reported by The Independent, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences analyzed DNA from 169 human remains recovered from Shimao and nearby sites in Shaanxi [SHAWN-she, third tone, dipping) and Shanxi [SHAWN-she, first tone, high and flat] provinces.  They found two very different types of sacrificial practices.  One involved groups of men buried together in mass graves.  The other involved women who were sacrificed and placed beside high-status individuals in elite tombs.

The male mass burials appear to have served a public or ceremonial purpose, possibly linked to protecting the settlement or marking important events.  In contrast, the female sacrifices were tied to elite burials, where women were placed as attendants beside powerful individuals.  This pattern shows that the society followed strict rules about who could be sacrificed and for what reason.

The DNA evidence also helps correct older assumptions.  Previous research at Shimao suggested that most sacrificial victims were women.  However, the new study shows that nine out of ten people sacrificed at the East Gate area were actually men.  Women were more often connected to high-status tombs, not public ritual sites.

The settlement itself was large and complex, with stone walls, craft areas and strong fortifications.  These features point to a hierarchical society with clear social ranks and gender expectations.  The study also found that the people of Shimao shared ancestry with earlier local groups and had genetic links to southern rice-farming communities, showing long-distance connections between ancient populations.

These new findings reveal how early communities in China shaped social identity, ritual behavior and political power.  They also show that gender played a central role in the way people organized both life and death.

The study came out in the journal Nature. 

Our final story this week comes from Mexico City, where archaeologists have uncovered a small household structure with three human burials and a collection of artifacts.  These discoveries point to the presence of Tlatelolca (tlah-teh-LOHL-kah) families living in the area during the Late Postclassic period between AD 1325 and 1521.

As reported by Heritage Daily, a team of archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History conducted the study.  They excavated along Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas, near the Tlatelolco (tlah-teh-LOHL-coh) Archaeological Zone.  Researchers found that the site shows at least three phases of occupation by the Mexica and the Tlatelolca.

The Tlatelolca were originally part of the Mexica, who lived in central Mexico in the thirteenth century and established the Aztec civilization.  They split up, and the Tlatelolca formed their own city-state called Mexico-Tlatelolco.  In 1473, the Aztec island city of Tenochtitlan (teh-NOCH-teet-LAWN) conquered the Tlatelolca and forced them to pay tribute.

One surprising detail is that the soil in the site area does not contain lakebed deposits, suggesting that this part of the landscape was stable ground in ancient times.  This helps archaeologists better define the edge of the old island and the boundary between Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlan. 

To study the layers of the site, the team opened nine test trenches, a small pit and a well almost four meters deep.  They discovered 24 layers of clay that demonstrate how people lived here repeatedly and changed the land over many generations. 

Older layers contained walls, floor fragments, a stone cooking area called a tlecuil (tleh-KWHEEL) and many Aztec III-style ceramics.  The artifacts indicate that a family of moderate social standing occupied the structure.  Items such as spindle whorls, bowls, figurines, multicolored obsidian blades, and a seal showing a monkey linked to the wind god Ehecatl (eh-HEH-catl), point to everyday life inside the home. 

The three burials come from the most recent phase of occupation.  They include an infant placed with offerings, a newborn and a young adult in a fetal position.  These careful burials give archaeologists valuable clues about family life, beliefs and traditions during the final years before Spanish contact.

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!