Hans-Peter Uerpmann

The Southern Route “Out of Africa”: Evidence for an Early Expansion of Modern Humans into Arabia

Artifacts in eastern Arabia dating to 100,000 years ago imply that modern humans left Africa early, as climate fluctuated. The timing of the dispersal of anatomically modern humans (AMH) out of Africa is a fundamental question in human evolutionary studies. Existing data suggest a rapid coastal exodus via the Indian Ocean rim around 60,000 years ago. We present evidence from Jebel Faya, United Arab Emirates, demonstrating human presence in eastern Arabia during the last interglacial. The tool kit found at Jebel Faya has affinities to the late Middle Stone Age in northeast Africa, indicating that technological innovation was not necessary to facilitate migration into Arabia. Instead, we propose that low eustatic sea level and increased rainfall during the transition between marine isotope stages 6 and 5 allowed humans to populate Arabia. This evidence implies that AMH may have been present in South Asia before the Toba eruption (1).

Mitochondrial DNA analysis shows a Near Eastern Neolithic origin for domestic cattle and no indication of domestication of European aurochs.

The extinct aurochs (Bos primigenius primigenius) was a large type of cattle that ranged over almost the whole Eurasian continent. The aurochs is the wild progenitor of modern cattle, but it is unclear whether European aurochs contributed to this process. To provide new insights into the demographic history of aurochs and domestic cattle, we have generated high-confidence mitochondrial DNA sequences from 59 archaeological skeletal finds, which were attributed to wild European cattle populations based on their chronological date and/or morphology. All pre-Neolithic aurochs belonged to the previously designated P haplogroup, indicating that this represents the Late Glacial Central European signature. We also report one new and highly divergent haplotype in a Neolithic aurochs sample from Germany, which points to greater variability during the Pleistocene. Furthermore, the Neolithic and Bronze Age samples that were classified with confidence as European aurochs using morphological criteria all carry P haplotype mitochondrial DNA, suggesting continuity of Late Glacial and Early Holocene aurochs populations in Europe. Bayesian analysis indicates that recent population growth gives a significantly better fit to our data than a constant-sized population, an observation consistent with a postglacial expansion scenario, possibly from a single European refugial population. Previous work has shown that most ancient and modern European domestic cattle carry haplotypes previously designated T. This, in combination with our new finding of a T haplotype in a very Early Neolithic site in Syria, lends persuasive support to a scenario whereby gracile Near Eastern domestic populations, carrying predominantly T haplotypes, replaced P haplotype-carrying robust autochthonous aurochs populations in Europe, from the Early Neolithic onward. During the period of coexistence, it appears that domestic cattle were kept separate from wild aurochs and introgression was extremely rare.

Holocene (Re-)Occupation of Eastern Arabia

Population discontinuities on a micro-scale are familiar phenomena in the archaeological record of many parts of the world, and Western Asia is no exception. Multi-period sites often display stratigraphic features, gaps in ceramic sequences and distances between radiocarbon dates implying breaks in the history of settlement. However, there is often a presumption that if settlement evidence from one period is missing in one trench or set of associated trenches, it may be present elsewhere since not all areas necessarily contain the full stratigraphic record of occupation at any given site. Population discontinuities at a macro-scale, such as a valley system or drainage zone, are equally common in settlement pattern studies, and de-population for periods ranging from centuries to millennia is familiar to most archaeologists who have worked at this scale. There is, however, another aspect of discontinuity which is rarely addressed directly by archaeologists working in Western Asia, even when it is observed, namely the issue of population continuity or discontinuity between the Pleistocene and the Holocene.

Qurum: a case study of coastal archaeology in Northern Oman

Abstract First evidence of prehistoric coastal adaptations along the Arabian shores of the Indian Ocean is being recovered at Qurum in the Sultanate of Oman. The cluster of shell‐middens currently excavated relates to a small population of fishermen of the 5th and 4th millennia B.C. having a strongly maritime‐oriented culture. The economy was based on local resource intensification, but stock‐breeding of goats and cattle was practised as well, suggesting early contacts with farming groups and the spreading of domesticates through coastal interchanges.

Ancient and modern DNA reveal dynamics of domestication and cross-continental dispersal of the dromedary

Significance The dromedary is one of the largest domesticates, sustainably used in arid and hostile environments. It provides food and transport to millions of people in marginal agricultural areas. We show how important long-distance and back-and-forth movements in ancient caravan routes shaped the species’ genetic diversity. Using a global sample set and ancient mitochondrial DNA analyses, we describe the population structure in modern dromedaries and their wild extinct ancestors. Phylogenetic analyses of ancient and modern dromedaries suggest a history of restocking from wild animals from the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Dromedaries now extend the list of species for which classic models of domestication from a single center and from wild conspecific individuals in isolation are rejected. Dromedaries have been fundamental to the development of human societies in arid landscapes and for long-distance trade across hostile hot terrains for 3,000 y. Today they continue to be an important livestock resource in marginal agro-ecological zones. However, the history of dromedary domestication and the influence of ancient trading networks on their genetic structure have remained elusive. We combined ancient DNA sequences of wild and early-domesticated dromedary samples from arid regions with nuclear microsatellite and mitochondrial genotype information from 1,083 extant animals collected across the species’ range. We observe little phylogeographic signal in the modern population, indicative of extensive gene flow and virtually affecting all regions except East Africa, where dromedary populations have remained relatively isolated. In agreement with archaeological findings, we identify wild dromedaries from the southeast Arabian Peninsula among the founders of the domestic dromedary gene pool. Approximate Bayesian computations further support the “restocking from the wild” hypothesis, with an initial domestication followed by introgression from individuals from wild, now-extinct populations. Compared with other livestock, which show a long history of gene flow with their wild ancestors, we find a high initial diversity relative to the native distribution of the wild ancestor on the Arabian Peninsula and to the brief coexistence of early-domesticated and wild individuals. This study also demonstrates the potential to retrieve ancient DNA sequences from osseous remains excavated in hot and dry desert environments.

Combined Hybridization Capture and Shotgun Sequencing for Ancient DNA Analysis of Extinct Wild and Domestic Dromedary Camel

The performance of hybridization capture combined with next‐generation sequencing (NGS) has seen limited investigation with samples from hot and arid regions until now. We applied hybridization capture and shotgun sequencing to recover DNA sequences from bone specimens of ancient‐domestic dromedary (Camelus dromedarius) and its extinct ancestor, the wild dromedary from Jordan, Syria, Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula, respectively. Our results show that hybridization capture increased the percentage of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) recovery by an average 187‐fold and in some cases yielded virtually complete mitochondrial (mt) genomes at multifold coverage in a single capture experiment. Furthermore, we tested the effect of hybridization temperature and time by using a touchdown approach on a limited number of samples. We observed no significant difference in the number of unique dromedary mtDNA reads retrieved with the standard capture compared to the touchdown method. In total, we obtained 14 partial mitochondrial genomes from ancient‐domestic dromedaries with 17–95% length coverage and 1.27–47.1‐fold read depths for the covered regions. Using whole‐genome shotgun sequencing, we successfully recovered endogenous dromedary nuclear DNA (nuDNA) from domestic and wild dromedary specimens with 1–1.06‐fold read depths for covered regions. Our results highlight that despite recent methodological advances, obtaining ancient DNA (aDNA) from specimens recovered from hot, arid environments is still problematic. Hybridization protocols require specific optimization, and samples at the limit of DNA preservation need multiple replications of DNA extraction and hybridization capture as has been shown previously for Middle Pleistocene specimens.

Investigating the Local Reservoir Age and Stable Isotopes of Shells from Southeast Arabia

We recently started a systematic approach to determine the reservoir age in southeast Arabia and its dependence on mollusk species and their environment. This part of the study concentrates on local reservoir age and stable isotopes of the lagoonal species Terebralia palustris and Anadara uropigimelana at Khor Kalba, Oman Sea. Environmental and nutritive influences on mollusks are reflected in the radiocarbon and stable isotope signal. We found a local reservoir age of A. uropigimelana of about 940 yr and that of T. palustris as 800 yr. Sclerochronological analyses yielded information about seasonality of growth and death in A. uropigimelana. The modern shell of Periglypta reticulata shares food resources and habitat with Anadara sp., of which we did not find a modern specimen. It provided information on response to changes in temperature in the lagoonal system needed for suitability as reflecting climatic conditions. We were interested in carbon pathways of the mangrove in Kalba and a mangrove planted anew on a former mangrove sediment in Ajman. Being an obvious source of charcoal and food of T. palustris makes this information necessary. Further analyses will be performed to interpret changes in reservoir age in complex lagoonal systems as reaction to environmental variability.

Environmental Aspects of Economic Changes in Troia

Based on the animal bone finds from the excavations at Troia and Kumtepe the development of subsistence economy in the Troad is outlined. Stable proportions between the domestic animals developed during the final fourth millennium b.c. at Kumtepe and were gradually modified in response to population development through the prehistoric and historic periods of Troia. A marked deviation from the basic pattern only occurs during period Troia IV. A climatic deterioration is made responsible for this shift. The dependence of faunal spectra and species proportions on environmental versus socio-economic factors is discussed.

Modern wolves trace their origin to a late Pleistocene expansion from Beringia

Grey wolves (Canis lupus) are one of the few large terrestrial carnivores that maintained a wide geographic distribution across the Northern Hemisphere throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene. Recent genetic studies have suggested that, despite this continuous presence, major demographic changes occurred in wolf populations between the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, and that extant wolves trace their ancestry to a single late Pleistocene population. Both the geographic origin of this ancestral population and how it became widespread remain a mystery. Here we analyzed a large dataset of novel modern and ancient mitochondrial wolf genomes, spanning the last 50,000 years, using a spatially and temporally explicit modeling framework to show that contemporary wolf populations across the globe trace their ancestry to an expansion from Beringia at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum - a process most likely driven by the significant ecological changes that occurred across the Northern Hemisphere during this period. This study provides direct ancient genetic evidence that long-range migration has played an important role in the population history of a large carnivore and provides an insight into how wolves survived the wave of megafaunal extinctions at the end of the last glaciation. Moreover, because late Pleistocene grey wolves were the likely source from which all modern dogs trace their origins, the demographic history described in this study has fundamental implications for understanding the geographical origin of the dog.

The “Commodification” of Animals

The basic precondition for the transformation of animals into “commodities” – defined as useful articles or facilities – is their immediate availability for the intended purpose. This is certainly not the case for animals living free in the wild. Domestication – or at least taming – is therefore the basic precondition for human use of live animals for whatever purpose. Research into the origins of animal domestication has a long tradition, which began with Charles Darwin (1868) and continues to the present day (e.g. Clutton-Brook (1999); Hongo et al. (2009); Conolly et al. (2011)). Definitions of domestication vary, but there is basic agreement that – in biological terms – domestication can be understood as separation of a domestic sub-population from the original wild population of the same species. Domestication must therefore be seen both as an anthropogenic and a biological process.