Archaeology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The speed and route by which Homo sapiens colonised Sahul is an ongoing topic of research. Here, the authors model the physical environment as it changes through time in combination with Lévy walk foraging patterns to suggest a wave of dispersal following coastlines and rivers.

    • Tristan Salles
    • , Renaud Joannes-Boyau
    •  & Manon Lorcery

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The origin and dispersal of the chicken across Eurasia is unclear. Here, the authors examine eggshell fragments from southern Central Asia with paleoproteomics to identify chicken eggshells, suggesting that chickens may have been an important dietary component as early as 400BCE.

    • Carli Peters
    • , Kristine K. Richter
    •  & Robert N. Spengler III

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The timing and chronology of the movement of Homo sapiens after migration out of Africa remains unclear. Here, the authors combine a genetic approach with a palaeoecological model to estimate that the Persian Plateau could have been a hub for migration out of Africa, suggesting the environment may have been suitable for population maintenance.

    • Leonardo Vallini
    • , Carlo Zampieri
    •  & Luca Pagani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The evolutionary origin of the domestic dog is uncertain. Here, the authors sequence the whole genomes of 9 extinct Japanese wolves and 11 modern Japanese dogs, applying a phylogenetic analysis to show that dogs may have originated in East Asia from a common ancestor with the Japanese wolf.

    • Jun Gojobori
    • , Nami Arakawa
    •  & Yohey Terai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lithic cutting-edge productivity is a way of quantifying prehistoric human technological evolution. Here, the authors examine the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition across eight assemblages in the eastern Mediterranean, finding the transition to be later than expected and associated with bladelet technology development.

    • Seiji Kadowaki
    • , Joe Yuichiro Wakano
    •  & Sate Massadeh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marine food resources are commonly thought to have become marginal food or abandoned altogether with the spread of agriculture in Europe. Here, the authors use biomarkers in dental calculus to track widespread consumption of seaweed and aquatic plants through the Neolithic and into the Early Middle Ages.

    • Stephen Buckley
    • , Karen Hardy
    •  & Maria Eulalia Subirà

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors report new human fossils from Tam Pà Ling cave, Laos, consisting of a cranial and a tibial fragment, dated to 68–86 thousand years ago. This find confirms that Homo sapiens were present in Southeast Asia by this time and the shape of the fossils indicates they may have descended from non-local populations.

    • Sarah E. Freidline
    • , Kira E. Westaway
    •  & Fabrice Demeter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An extinct prehistoric plague lineage of Yersinia pestis has been documented from Central Europe to Asia during the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age. Here, Swali et al. show that this lineage spread to Europe’s northwestern periphery by sequencing three ~4000 year-old Yersinia pestis genomes from Britain.

    • Pooja Swali
    • , Rick Schulting
    •  & Pontus Skoglund

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors compare 76 dental calculus oral microbiomes from Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers with Neolithic and Copper Age farmers living in the same region of Italy. Integrating these data with archaeological data and dietary information, they find evidence of a gradual transition to agriculture.

    • Andrea Quagliariello
    • , Alessandra Modi
    •  & Martina Lari

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite archaeobotanical evidence for domesticated cereals, organic residue evidence is scarce. Here, the authors identify cereal-specific markers in pottery from Scottish ‘crannogs’, revealing the presence of cereals in Neolithic pottery which might have been mixed with dairy products as a milk-based gruel.

    • Simon Hammann
    • , Rosie R. Bishop
    •  & Lucy J. E. Cramp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors use climate and resource availability, to statistically model the limiting factors in the dynamics of hunter-gatherer population densities in Europe between 21,000 and 8,000 years ago. They find that limiting factors varied spatiotemporally and the effects of these may be visible in the archaeological record.

    • Alejandro Ordonez
    •  & Felix Riede

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The influence of climate on premodern civil conflict and societal instability is debated. Here, the authors combine archeological, historical, and paleoclimatic datasets to show that drought between 1400-1450 cal. CE escalated civil conflict at Mayapan, the largest Postclassic Maya capital of the Yucatán Peninsula.

    • Douglas J. Kennett
    • , Marilyn Masson
    •  & David A. Hodell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Evidence for the presence of Homo during the Middle Pleistocene is limited in continental Southeast Asia. Here, the authors report a hominin molar from Tam Ngu Hao 2 (Cobra Cave), dated to 164–131 kyr. They use morphological and paleoproteomic analysis to show that it likely belonged to a female Denisovan.

    • Fabrice Demeter
    • , Clément Zanolli
    •  & Laura Shackelford

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Available methods to identify species from fragmented archaeological bone and remains suffer a trade-off between cost and resolution. Here, the authors present a workflow that uses automated sample preparation, 10 to 20 times faster data acquisition, and computerized data interpretation to make the technology applicable to large-scale studies.

    • Patrick Leopold Rüther
    • , Immanuel Mirnes Husic
    •  & Jesper Velgaard Olsen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    ‘Commercial fisheries have decimated keystone species, including oysters in the past 200 years. Here, the authors examine how Indigenous oyster harvest in North America and Australia was managed across 10,000 years, advocating for effective future stewardship of oyster reefs by centering Indigenous peoples.’

    • Leslie Reeder-Myers
    • , Todd J. Braje
    •  & Torben C. Rick

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The genetic prehistory of central America has not been well explored. Here, the authors find evidence from ancient DNA from twenty individuals who lived in Belize 9,600 to 3,700 years ago of a migration from the south that coincided with the first evidence for forest clearing and the spread of maize horticulture.

    • Douglas J. Kennett
    • , Mark Lipson
    •  & David Reich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    ‘Pre-contact era humans from coastal South America were infected by Mycobacterium pinnipedii, most likely, through contact with infected pinnipeds. Here, the authors investigate the presence of M. pinnipedii in pre-contact era humans from inland South America and explore potential scenarios of human-to-human or animal-mediated transmission.’

    • Åshild J. Vågene
    • , Tanvi P. Honap
    •  & Kirsten I. Bos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    ‘The timing and ecological dynamics of extinction in the late Pleistocene are not well understood. Here, the authors use sediment ancient DNA from permafrost cores to reconstruct the paleoecology of the central Yukon, finding a substantial turnover in ecosystem composition between 13,500-10,000 years BP and persistence of some species past their supposed extinctions.’

    • Tyler J. Murchie
    • , Alistair J. Monteath
    •  & Hendrik N. Poinar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Summed probability distributions of radiocarbon dates can be used to estimate past demography, but methods to test for associations with environmental change are lacking. Here, DiNapoli et al. propose an approach using Approximate Bayesian Computation and illustrate it in a case study of Rapa Nui.

    • Robert J. DiNapoli
    • , Enrico R. Crema
    •  & Terry L. Hunt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Though there is a long archaeological record of the use of honey, beeswax and other bee products, there are few known records from Africa. Here Dunne et al. analyse lipid residues from pottery from the Nok culture, Nigeria, dating to ~3500 years ago and find evidence of the collection and processing of bee products, likely honey.

    • Julie Dunne
    • , Alexa Höhn
    •  & Richard P. Evershed

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There are a number of competing explanations for the late Pleistocene extinction of many North American megafauna species. Here, the authors apply a Bayesian regression approach that finds greater concordance between megafaunal declines and climate change than with human population growth.

    • Mathew Stewart
    • , W. Christopher Carleton
    •  & Huw S. Groucutt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Consuming the milk of other species is a unique adaptation of Homo sapiens. Here, the authors carry out proteomic analysis of dental calculus of 41 ancient individuals from Sudan and Kenya, indicating milk consumption occurred as soon as herding spread into eastern Africa.

    • Madeleine Bleasdale
    • , Kristine K. Richter
    •  & Nicole Boivin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Oldupai Gorge, Tanzania is a key site for understanding early human evolution. Here, the authors report a multiproxy dataset from the Western basin of Oldupai Gorge dating to 2 million years ago, enabling the in situ comparison of lithic assemblages, paleoenvironments and hominin behavioral adaptability.

    • Julio Mercader
    • , Pam Akuku
    •  & Michael Petraglia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Seshat database has made it possible to reveal large-scale patterns in human cultural evolution. Here, Shin et al. investigate transitions in social complexity and find alternating thresholds of polity size and information processing required for further sociopolitical development.

    • Jaeweon Shin
    • , Michael Holton Price
    •  & Timothy A. Kohler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There has been substantial debate of how hominins colonized Australasia through Wallacea, including their ability to utilize marine vs. terrestrial resources. Here, Roberts et al. use stable carbon and oxygen isotopes to reconstruct temporal shifts in the diets of early human inhabitants of Alor and Timor.

    • Patrick Roberts
    • , Julien Louys
    •  & Sue OʼConnor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The transition to agriculture brought major changes to human populations in Europe during the Neolithic period. Here, Cubas and colleagues analyse lipid residues from Neolithic pottery from along the Atlantic coast of Europe to trace the spread of dairy production and shifts in diet.

    • Miriam Cubas
    • , Alexandre Lucquin
    •  & Oliver E. Craig

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How the development of human societies is influenced through their ecological environment and climatic conditions has been the subject of intensive debate. Here, the authors present multi-proxy data from southern Scandinavia which suggests that pre-agricultural population growth there was likely influenced by enhanced marine production.

    • J. P. Lewis
    • , D. B. Ryves
    •  & S. Juggins

  • Article
    | Open Access

    When modern humans colonized India is debated. Here, Clarkson and colleagues report an archaeological site in India that has been occupied for approximately 80,000 years and contains a stone tool assemblage attributed to Homo sapiens that matches artefacts from Africa, Arabia, and Australia.

    • Chris Clarkson
    • , Clair Harris
    •  & Michael Petraglia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ancient DNA analysis of early European farmers has found a high level of genetic affinity with present-day Sardinians. Here, the authors generate genome-wide capture data for 70 individuals from Sardinia spanning the Middle Neolithic to Medieval period to reveal relationships with mainland European populations shifting over time.

    • Joseph H. Marcus
    • , Cosimo Posth
    •  & John Novembre

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known about the diets of early modern humans as they dispersed into Australia. Here, Florin et al. study charred plant remains from Madjedbebe rockshelter, which show that 65–53 thousand years ago, early modern humans in northern Australia already had a broad diet of plants.

    • S. Anna Florin
    • , Andrew S. Fairbairn
    •  & Chris Clarkson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Birch pitch is thought to have been used in prehistoric times as hafting material or antiseptic and tooth imprints suggest that it was chewed. Here, the authors report a 5,700 year-old piece of chewed birch pitch from Denmark from which they successfully recovered a complete ancient human genome and oral microbiome DNA.

    • Theis Z. T. Jensen
    • , Jonas Niemann
    •  & Hannes Schroeder

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Whether Australia’s Pleistocene megafauna extinctions were caused by climate change, humans, or both is debated. Here, the authors infer the spatio-temporal trajectories of regional extinctions and find that water availability mediates the relationship among climate, human migration and megafauna extinctions.

    • Frédérik Saltré
    • , Joël Chadoeuf
    •  & Corey J. A. Bradshaw

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Remains of several hundred humans are scattered around Roopkund Lake, situated over 5,000 meters above sea level in the Himalayan Mountains. Here the authors analyze genome-wide data from 38 skeletons and find 3 clusters with different ancestries and dates, showing the people were desposited in multiple catastrophic events.

    • Éadaoin Harney
    • , Ayushi Nayak
    •  & Niraj Rai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The archaeological record provides large ensembles of radiocarbon dates which can be used to infer long-term changes in human demography. Here, the authors analyse the radiocarbon record of the Iberian peninsula, finding support for a bottleneck during the Last Glacial-Interglacial transition

    • Javier Fernández-López de Pablo
    • , Mario Gutiérrez-Roig
    •  & Sergi Lozano

  • Article
    | Open Access

    As modern humans migrated out of Africa, they encountered novel habitats. Here, Wedage et al. study the archaeological site of Fa-Hien Lena in Sri Lanka and show that the earliest human residents of the island practiced specialized hunting of small mammals, demonstrating ecological plasticity.

    • Oshan Wedage
    • , Noel Amano
    •  & Patrick Roberts

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Caucasus mountain range has impacted on the culture and genetics of the wider region. Here, the authors generate genome-wide SNP data for 45 Eneolithic and Bronze Age individuals across the Caucasus, and find distinct genetic clusters between mountain and steppe zones as well as occasional gene-flow.

    • Chuan-Chao Wang
    • , Sabine Reinhold
    •  & Wolfgang Haak

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Salkhit skull from Mongolia was initially suggested to have archaic hominin characters. Here, Devièse and colleagues date the skull to approximately 34–35 thousand years ago and reconstruct its mitochondrial genome, finding that it falls within modern human haplogroup N found across Eurasia.

    • Thibaut Devièse
    • , Diyendo Massilani
    •  & Tom Higham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Populations from North-eastern Europe, in particular those speaking Uralic languages, carry additional ancestry in similarity with modern East Asian populations. Here, the authors analyse ancient genomic data from 11 individuals from Finland and Northwest Russia, and identify genomic signals of migrations from Siberia that began at least 3500 years ago.

    • Thiseas C. Lamnidis
    • , Kerttu Majander
    •  & Stephan Schiffels

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mineralized plaque, or dental calculus, is a valuable reservoir of the ancient oral microbiome. Here, the authors use quantitative metaproteomics to analyze the dental calculus of 21 individuals from a medieval cemetery, identifying human and microbial proteins that shed light on their oral health status.

    • Rosa R. Jersie-Christensen
    • , Liam T. Lanigan
    •  & Jesper V. Olsen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Longobards invaded and conquered much of Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Here, the authors sequence and analyze ancient genomic DNA from 63 samples from two cemeteries associated with the Longobards and identify kinship networks and two distinct genetic and cultural groups in each.

    • Carlos Eduardo G. Amorim
    • , Stefania Vai
    •  & Krishna R. Veeramah

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