A Review of Human-Elephant Ecological Relations in the Malay Peninsula: Adaptations for Coexistence

Understanding the relationship between humans and elephants is of particular interest for reducing conflict and encouraging coexistence. This paper reviews the ecological relationship between humans and Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in the rainforests of the Malay Peninsula, examining the extent of differentiation of spatio-temporal and trophic niches. We highlight the strategies that people and elephants use to partition an overlapping fundamental niche. When elephants are present, forest-dwelling people often build above-the-ground shelters; and when people are present, elephants avoid open areas during the day. People are able to access several foods that are out of reach of elephants or inedible; for example, people use water to leach poisons from tubers of wild yams, use blowpipes to kill arboreal game, and climb trees to access honey. We discuss how the transition to agriculture affected the human–elephant relationship by increasing the potential for competition. We conclude that the traditional foraging cultures of the Malay Peninsula are compatible with wildlife conservation.

Genomes From Verteba Cave Suggest Diversity Within The Trypillians In Ukraine

The transition to agriculture occurred relatively late in Eastern Europe, leading researchers to debate whether it was a gradual, interactive process or a colonization event. In the forest and forest-steppe regions of Ukraine, farming appeared during the fifth millennium BCE, associated with the Cucuteni-Trypillian Archaeological Complex (CTCC, 4800-3000 BCE). Across Europe, the Neolithization process was highly variable across space and over time. Here, we investigate the population dynamics of early agriculturalists from the eastern forest-steppe region based on analyses of 20 ancient genomes from the Verteba Cave site (3789-980 BCE). The results reveal that the CTCC individuals’ ancestry is related to both western hunter gatherers and Near Eastern farmers, lacks local ancestry associated with Ukrainian Neolithic hunter gatherers and has steppe ancestry. An Early Bronze Age individual has an ancestry profile related to the Yamnaya expansions but with 20% ancestry related to the other Trypillian individuals, which suggests admixture between the Trypillians and the incoming populations carrying steppe-related ancestry. A Late Bronze Age individual dated to 980-948 BCE has a genetic profile indicating affinity to Beaker-related populations, detected close to 1,000 years after the end of the Bell Beaker phenomenon during the Third millennium BCE.

Early line and hook fishing at the Epipaleolithic site of Jordan River Dureijat (Northern Israel)

Nineteen broken and complete bone fish hooks and six grooved stones recovered from the Epipaleolithic site of Jordan River Dureijat in the Hula Valley of Israel represent the largest collection of fishing technology from the Epipaleolithic and Paleolithic periods. Although Jordan River Dureijat was occupied throughout the Epipaleolithic (~20–10 kya the fish hooks appear only at the later stage of this period (15,000–12,000 cal BP). This paper presents a multidimensional study of the hooks, grooved stones, site context, and the fish assemblage from macro and micro perspectives following technological, use wear, residue and zooarchaeological approaches. The study of the fish hooks reveals significant variability in hook size, shape and feature type and provides the first evidence that several landmark innovations in fishing technology were already in use at this early date. These include inner and outer barbs, a variety of line attachment techniques including knobs, grooves and adhesives and some of the earliest evidence for artificial lures. Wear on the grooved stones is consistent with their use as sinkers while plant fibers recovered from the grooves of one hook shank and one stone suggest the use of fishing line. This together with associations between the grooved stones and hooks in the same archaeological layers, suggests the emergence of a sophisticated line and hook technology. The complexity of this technology is highlighted by the multiple steps required to manufacture each component and combine them into an integrated system. The appearance of such technology in the Levantine Epipaleolithic record reflects a deep knowledge of fish behavior and ecology. This coincides with significant larger-scale patterns in subsistence evolution, namely broad spectrum foraging, which is an important first signal of the beginning of the transition to agriculture in this region.

Let’s go fishing: A quantitative analysis of subsistence choices with a special focus on mixed economies among small-scale societies

The transition to agriculture is regarded as a major turning point in human history. In the present contribution we propose to look at it through the lens of ethnographic data by means of a machine learning approach. More specifically, we analyse both the subsistence economies and the socioecological context of 1290 societies documented in the Ethnographic Atlas with a threefold purpose: (i) to better understand the variability and success of human economic choices; (ii) to assess the role of environmental settings in the configuration of the different subsistence economies; and (iii) to examine the relevance of fishing in the development of viable alternatives to cultivation. All data were extracted from the publicly available cross-cultural database D-PLACE. Our results suggest that not all subsistence combinations are viable, existing just a subset of successful economic choices that appear recurrently in specific ecological systems. The subsistence economies identified are classified as either primary or mixed economies in accordance with an information-entropy-based quantitative criterion that determines their degree of diversification. Remarkably, according to our results, mixed economies are not a marginal choice, as they constitute 25% of the cases in our data sample. In addition, fishing seems to be a key element in the configuration of mixed economies, as it is present across all of them.

Crops, Cattle and Human DNA – The Motala Site and the Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition in Östergötland, Southern Sweden

Palaeogenetic research has recently questioned the notion that the transition to agriculture in south- ern Scandinavia was initiated by local groups of hunter-gatherers who adopted the new economy at the onset of the Neolithic. Instead, the transition is claimed to have been brought about by farmers who migrated to the region from the continent. In this paper we examine whether the idea of a migra- tion can be upheld when set against archaeologi- cal source materials from Östergötland in southern Sweden. Our findings indicate that the notion of a local adoption is supported by the archaeological sources from the area. We also claim that available palaeogenetic sources do not contradict the inter- pretation that local groups of hunter-gatherers ini- tiated the transition to agriculture.

The transition from hunting–gathering to agriculture in Nubia: dental evidence for and against selection, population continuity and discontinuity

Some researchers posit population continuity between Late Palaeolithic hunter–gatherers of the late Pleistocene and Holocene agriculturalists from Lower (northern) Nubia, in northeast Africa. Substantial craniodental differences in these time-successive groups are suggested to result from in situ evolution. Specifically, these populations are considered a model example for subsistence-related selection worldwide in the transition to agriculture. Others question continuity, with findings indicating that the largely homogeneous Holocene populations differ significantly from late Pleistocene Lower Nubians. If the latter are representative of the local populace, post-Pleistocene discontinuity is implied. So who was ancestral to the Holocene agriculturalists? Dental morphological analyses of 18 samples (1075 individuals), including one dated to the 12th millennium BCE from Al Khiday, near the Upper Nubian border, may provide an answer. It is the first Late Palaeolithic sample ( n = 55) recovered within the region in approximately 50 years. Using the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System to record traits and multivariate statistics to estimate biological affinities, Al Khiday is comparable to several Holocene samples, yet also highly divergent from contemporaneous Lower Nubians. Thus, population continuity is indicated after all, but with late Pleistocene Upper—rather than Lower Nubians as originally suggested—assuming dental traits are adequate proxies for ancient DNA.

An integrative skeletal and paleogenomic analysis of prehistoric stature variation suggests relatively reduced health for early European farmers

Human culture, biology, and health were shaped dramatically by the onset of agriculture ~12,000 years before present (BP). Subsistence shifts from hunting and gathering to agriculture are hypothesized to have resulted in increased individual fitness and population growth as evidenced by archaeological and population genomic data alongside a simultaneous decline in physiological health as inferred from paleopathological analyses and stature reconstructions of skeletal remains. A key component of the health decline inference is that relatively shorter statures observed for early farmers may (at least partly) reflect higher childhood disease burdens and poorer nutrition. However, while such stresses can indeed result in growth stunting, height is also highly heritable, and substantial inter-individual variation in the height genetic component within a population is typical. Moreover, extensive migration and gene flow were characteristics of multiple agricultural transitions worldwide. Here, we consider both osteological and ancient DNA data from the same prehistoric individuals to comprehensively study the trajectory of human stature variation as a proxy for health across a transition to agriculture. Specifically, we compared "predicted" genetic contributions to height from paleogenomic data and "achieved" adult osteological height estimated from long bone measurements on a per-individual basis for n=160 ancient Europeans from sites spanning the Upper Paleolithic to the Iron Age (~38,000-2,400 BP). We found that individuals from the Neolithic were shorter than expected (given their individual polygenic height scores) by an average of -4.47 cm relative to individuals from the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic (P=0.016). The average osteological vs. expected stature then increased relative to the Neolithic over the Copper (+2.67 cm, P=0.052), Bronze (+3.33 cm, P=0.032), and Iron Ages (+3.95 cm, P=0.094). These results were partly attenuated when we accounted for genome-wide genetic ancestry variation in our sample (which we note is partly duplicative with the individual polygenic score information). For example, in this secondary analysis Neolithic individuals were -3.48 cm shorter than expected on average relative to individuals from the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic (P=0.056). We also incorporated observations of paleopathological indicators of non-specific stress that can persist from childhood to adulthood in skeletal remains (linear enamel hypoplasia, cribra orbitalia, and porotic hyperostosis) into our model. Overall, our work highlights the potential of integrating disparate datasets to explore proxies of health in prehistory.