̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Jay Stock

Prehistoric women’s manual work was tougher than rowing in today’s elite boat crews

fpjl2 — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 19:01:03 +0000

A new study comparing the bones of Central European women that lived during the first 6,000 years of farming with those of modern athletes has shown that the average prehistoric agricultural woman had stronger upper arms than living female rowing champions.

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology say this physical prowess was likely obtained through tilling soil and harvesting crops by hand, as well as the grinding of grain for as much as five hours a day to make flour.

Until now, bioarchaeological investigations of past behaviour have interpreted women’s bones solely through direct comparison to those of men. However, male bones respond to strain in a more visibly dramatic way than female bones.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge scientists say this has resulted in the systematic underestimation of the nature and scale of the physical demands borne by women in prehistory.

“This is the first study to actually compare prehistoric female bones to those of living women,” said Dr Alison Macintosh, lead author of the study published today in the journal Science Advances.

“By interpreting women’s bones in a female-specific context we can start to see how intensive, variable and laborious their behaviours were, hinting at a hidden history of women’s work over thousands of years.”

̽��ֱ��study, part of the European Research Council-funded ADaPt (Adaption, Dispersals and Phenotype) Project, used a small CT scanner in Cambridge’s PAVE laboratory to analyse the arm (humerus) and leg (tibia) bones of living women who engage in a range of physical activity: from runners, rowers and footballers to those with more sedentary lifestyles.

̽��ֱ��bones strengths of modern women were compared to those of women from early Neolithic agricultural eras through to farming communities of the Middle Ages.

“It can be easy to forget that bone is a living tissue, one that responds to the rigours we put our bodies through. Physical impact and muscle activity both put strain on bone, called loading. ̽��ֱ��bone reacts by changing in shape, curvature, thickness and density over time to accommodate repeated strain,” said Macintosh.

“By analysing the bone characteristics of living people whose regular physical exertion is known, and comparing them to the characteristics of ancient bones, we can start to interpret the kinds of labour our ancestors were performing in prehistory.”

Over three weeks during trial season, Macintosh scanned the limb bones of the Open- and Lightweight squads of the Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Women’s Boat Club, who ended up winning this year’s Boat Race and breaking the course record. These women, most in their early twenties, were training twice a day and rowing an average of 120km a week at the time.

̽��ֱ��Neolithic women analysed in the study (from 7400-7000 years ago) had similar leg bone strength to modern rowers, but their arm bones were 11-16% stronger for their size than the rowers, and almost 30% stronger than typical Cambridge students.

̽��ֱ��loading of the upper limbs was even more dominant in the study’s Bronze Age women (from 4300-3500 years ago), who had 9-13% stronger arm bones than the rowers but 12% weaker leg bones.

A possible explanation for this fierce arm strength is the grinding of grain. “We can’t say specifically what behaviours were causing the bone loading we found. However, a major activity in early agriculture was converting grain into flour, and this was likely performed by women,” said Macintosh.

“For millennia, grain would have been ground by hand between two large stones called a saddle quern. In the few remaining societies that still use saddle querns, women grind grain for up to five hours a day.

“ ̽��ֱ��repetitive arm action of grinding these stones together for hours may have loaded women's arm bones in a similar way to the laborious back-and-forth motion of rowing.”

However, Macintosh suspects that women’s labour was hardly likely to have been limited to this one behaviour.

“Prior to the invention of the plough, subsistence farming involved manually planting, tilling and harvesting all crops,” said Macintosh. “Women were also likely to have been fetching food and water for domestic livestock, processing milk and meat, and converting hides and wool into textiles.

“ ̽��ֱ��variation in bone loading found in prehistoric women suggests that a wide range of behaviours were occurring during early agriculture. In fact, we believe it may be the wide variety of women’s work that in part makes it so difficult to identify signatures of any one specific behaviour from their bones.”

Dr Jay Stock, senior study author and head of the ADaPt Project, added: “Our findings suggest that for thousands of years, the rigorous manual labour of women was a crucial driver of early farming economies. ̽��ֱ��research demonstrates what we can learn about the human past through better understanding of human variation today.”

̽��ֱ��first study to compare ancient and living female bones shows that women from early agricultural eras had stronger arms than the rowers of Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s famously competitive boat club. Researchers say the findings suggest a “hidden history” of gruelling manual labour performed by women that stretched across millennia.

By interpreting women’s bones in a female-specific context we can start to see how intensive, variable and laborious their behaviours were

Alison Macintosh

Prehistoric women’s manual work was tougher than rowing in today’s elite boat crews

Alastair Fyfe for the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Women’s Boat Club Openweight crew rowing during the 2017 Boat Race on the river Thames in London. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge women’s crew beat Oxford in the race. ̽��ֱ��members of this crew were among those analysed in the study.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Height and weight evolved at different speeds in the bodies of our ancestors

fpjl2 — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 00:33:01 +0000

A wide-ranging new study of fossils spanning over four million years suggests that stature and body mass advanced at different speeds during the evolution of hominins – the ancestral lineage of which Homo sapiens alone still exist.

Published today in the journal Royal Society: Open Science, the research also shows that, rather than steadily increasing in size, hominin bodies evolved in “pulse and stasis” fluctuations, with some lineages even shrinking.

̽��ֱ��findings are from the largest study of hominin body sizes, involving 311 specimens dating from earliest upright species of 4.4m years ago right through to the modern humans that followed the last ice age.

While researchers describe the physical evolution of assorted hominin species as a “long and winding road with many branches and dead ends”, they say that broad patterns in the data suggest bursts of growth at key stages, followed by plateaus where little changed for many millennia.

̽��ֱ��scientists were surprised to find a “decoupling” of bulk and stature around one and a half million years ago, when hominins grew roughly 10cm taller but would not consistently gain any heft for a further million years, with an average increase of 10-15kgs occurring around 500,000 years ago.

Before this event, height and weight in hominin species appeared to evolve roughly “in concert”, say the authors of this first study to jointly analyse both aspects of body size over millions of years.

“An increase solely in stature would have created a leaner physique, with long legs and narrow hips and shoulders. This may have been an adaptation to new environments and endurance hunting, as early Homo species left the forests and moved on to more arid African savannahs,” says lead author Dr Manuel Will from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology, and a Research Fellow at Gonville & Caius College.

“ ̽��ֱ��higher surface-to-volume ratio of a tall, slender body would be an advantage when stalking animals for hours in the dry heat, as a larger skin area increases the capacity for the evaporation of sweat.

“ ̽��ֱ��later addition of body mass coincides with ever-increasing migrations into higher latitudes, where a bulkier body would be better suited for thermoregulation in colder Eurasian climates,” he says.

However, Dr Will points out that, while these are valid theories, vast gaps in the fossil record continue to mask absolute truths. In fact, Will and colleagues often had to estimate body sizes from highly fragmented remains – in some cases from just a single toe bone.

̽��ֱ��study found body size to be highly variable during earlier hominin history, with a range of differently shaped species: from broad, gorilla-like Paranthropus to the more wiry or ‘gracile’ Australopithecus afarensis. Hominins from four million years ago weighed a rough average of 25kg and stood at 125-130cm.

As physicality morphs over deep time, increasingly converging on larger body sizes, the scientists observe three key “pulses” of significant change.

̽��ֱ��first occurs with the dawn of our own defined species bracket, Homo, around 2.2-1.9m years ago. This period sees a joint surge in both height (around 20 cm) and weight (between 15-20kg).

Stature then separated from heft with a height increase alone of 10cm between 1.4-1.6m years ago, shortly after the emergence of Homo erectus. “From a modern perspective this is where we see a familiar stature reached and maintained. Body mass, however, is still some way off,” explains Will.

It’s not until a million years later (0.5-0.4m years ago) that consistently heavier hominins appear in the fossil record, with an estimated 10-15kg greater body mass signalling adaptation to environments north of the Mediterranean.

“From then onwards, average body height and weight stays more or less the same in the hominin lineage, leading ultimately to ourselves,” says Will.

There are, however, a couple of exceptions to this grand narrative: Homo naledi and Homo floresiensis. Recently discovered remains suggest these species swam against the tide of increasing body size through time.

“They may have derived from much older small-bodied ancestors, or adapted to evolutionary pressures occurring in small and isolated populations,” says Will. Floresiensis was discovered on an Indonesian island.

“Our study shows that, other than these two species, hominins that appear after 1.4m years ago are all larger than 140cm and 40kg. This doesn’t change until human bodies diversify again in just the last few thousand years.”

“These findings suggest extremely strong selective pressures against small body sizes which shifted the evolutionary spectrum towards the larger bodies we have today.”

Will and colleagues say evolutionary pressures that may have contributed include ‘cladogenesis’: the splitting of a lineage, with one line – the smaller-bodied one, in this case – becoming extinct, perhaps as a result of inter-species competition.

They also suggest that sexual dimorphism – the physical distinction between genders, with females typically smaller in mammals – was more prevalent in early hominin species but then steadily ironed out by evolution.

Study co-author Dr Jay Stock, also from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology, suggests this growth trajectory may continue.

“Many human groups have continued to get taller over just the past century. With improved nutrition and healthcare, average statures will likely continue to rise in the near future. However, there is certainly a ceiling set by our genes, which define our maximum potential for growth," Stock says.

“Body size is one of the most important determinants of the biology of every organism on the planet,” adds Will. “Reconstructing the evolutionary history of body size has the potential to provide us with insights into the development of locomotion, brain complexity, feeding strategies, even social life.”

̽��ֱ��largest study to date of body sizes over millions of years finds a “pulse and stasis” pattern to hominin evolution, with surges of growth in stature and bulk occurring at different times. At one stage, our ancestors got taller around a million years before body mass caught up.

Body size is one of the most important determinants of the biology of every organism on the planet

Manuel Will

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Femoral head bones of different hominin species. From top to bottom: Australopithecus afarensis (4-3 million years; ~40 kg, 130 cm); Homo ergaster (1.9-1.4 million years; 55-60 kg; ~165 cm); Neanderthal (200.000-30.000 years; ~70 kg; ~163 cm).

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Earliest humans had diverse range of body types, just as we do today

jeh98 — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 09:14:54 +0000

One of the dominant theories of our evolution is that our genus, Homo, evolved from small-bodied early humans to become the taller, heavier and longer legged Homo erectus that was able to migrate beyond Africa and colonise Eurasia. While we know that small-bodied Homo erectus – averaging less than five foot and under eight stone – were living in Georgia in southern Europe by 1.77 million years ago, the timing and geographic origin of the larger body size that we associate with modern humans has, until now, remained unresolved.

But a joint study by researchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Tübingen (Germany), published today in the Journal of Human Evolution, has now shown that the main increase in body size occurred tens of thousands of years after Homo erectus left Africa, and primarily in the Koobi Fora region of Kenya. According to Manuel Will, a co-author of the study from the Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at Tübingen, “the evolution of larger bodies and longer legs can thus no longer be assumed to be the main driving factor behind the earliest excursions of our genus to Eurasia”.

Researchers say the results from a new research method, using tiny fragments of fossil to estimate our earliest ancestors’ height and body mass, also point to the huge diversity in body size we see in humans today emerging much earlier than previously thought.

“What we’re seeing is perhaps the beginning of a unique characteristic of our own species – the origins of diversity,” said Dr Jay Stock, co-author of the study from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology. “It’s possible to interpret our findings as showing that there were either multiple species of early human, such as Homo habilis, Homo ergaster and Homo rudolfensis, or one highly diverse species. This fits well with recent cranial evidence for tremendous diversity among early members of the genus Homo.”

“If someone asked you ‘are modern humans 6 foot tall and 70kg?’ you’d say ‘well some are, but many people aren’t,’ and what we’re starting to show is that this diversification happened really early in human evolution,” said Stock.

̽��ֱ��study is the first in 20 years to compare the body size of the humans who shared the earth with mammoths and sabre-toothed cats between 2.5 and 1.5 million years ago. It is also the first time that many fragmentary fossils – some as small as toes and tiny ankle bones no more than 5cm long – have been used to make body size estimates.

Comparing measurements of fossils from sites in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and Georgia, the researchers found that there was significant regional variation in the size of early humans during the Pleistocene. Some groups, such as those who lived in South African caves, averaged 4.8 feet tall; some of those found in Kenya’s Koobi Fora region would have stood at almost 6 foot, comparable to the average of today´s male population in Britain.

“Basically every textbook on human evolution gives the perspective that one lineage of humans evolved larger bodies before spreading beyond Africa. But the evidence for this story about our origins and the dispersal out of Africa just no longer really fits,” said Stock. “ ̽��ֱ��first clues came from the site of Dmanisi in Georgia where fossils of really small-bodied people date to 1.77 million years ago. This has been known for several years, but we now know that consistently larger body size evolved in Eastern Africa after 1.7 million years ago, in the Koobi Fora region of Kenya.”

“We tend to simplify our interpretations because the fossil record is patchy and we have to explain it in some way. But revealing the diversity that exists is just as important as those broad, sweeping explanations.”

Previous studies have been based on small samples of only 10-15 fossils because techniques for calculating the height and body mass of individuals required specific pieces of bone such as the hip joint or most of a leg bone. Stock and Will have used a sample size three times larger, estimating body size for over 40 specimens contained in collections all over Africa and Georgia, making it the largest comparative study conducted so far.

Instead of waiting for new fossils to be discovered and hoping that they contained these specific bones, Stock and Will decided to try a different approach and make use of previously over-looked fossils.

In what Stock describes as a “very challenging project,” they spent a year developing new equations that allowed them to calculate the height and body mass of individuals using much smaller bones, some as small as toes. By comparing these bones to measurements taken from over 800 modern hunter-gatherer skeletons from around the world and applying various regression equations, the researchers were able to estimate body size for many new fossils that have never been studied in this way before.

“In human evolution we see body size as one of the most important characteristics, and from examining these ‘scrappier’ fossils we can get a much better sense of when and where human body size diversity arose. Before 1.7 million years ago our ancestors were seldom over 5 foot tall or particularly heavy in body mass.

“When this significant size shift to much heavier, taller individuals happened, it occurred primarily in one particular place – in a region called Koobi Fora in northern Kenya around 1.7 million years ago. That means we can now start thinking about what regional conditions drove the emergence of this diversity, rather than seeing body size as a fixed and fundamental characteristic of a species,” said Stock.

Inset images – the landscape of the West Turkana region of Kenya where the 'Nariokotome boy' skeleton was discovered, credit Manuel Will; table of estimated heights and weights of early Homo during the Pleistocene.

New research harnessing fragmentary fossils suggests our genus has come in different shapes and sizes since its origins over two million years ago, and adds weight to the idea that humans began to colonise Eurasia while still small and lightweight.

What we’re seeing is perhaps the beginning of a unique characteristic of our own species – the origins of diversity.

Jay Stock

Cast of the 'Nariokotome boy' (Homo ergaster) skeleton

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page. For image rights, please see the credits associated with each individual image.

Yes

From foraging to farming: the 10,000-year revolution

lw355 — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:30:18 +0000

̽��ֱ��moment when the hunter-gatherers laid down their spears and began farming around 11,000 years ago is often interpreted as one of the most rapid and significant transitions in human history – the ‘Neolithic Revolution’.

By producing and storing food, Homo sapiens both mastered the natural world and took the first significant steps towards thousands of years of runaway technological development. ̽��ֱ��advent of specialist craftsmen, an increase in fertility and the construction of permanent architecture are just some of the profound changes that followed.

Of course, the transition to agriculture was far from rapid. ̽��ֱ��period around 14,500 years ago has been regarded as the point at which the first indications appear of cultural change associated with agriculture: the exploitation of wild grains and the construction of stone buildings. Farming is believed to have begun in what is known as the Fertile Crescent in the Levant region, which stretches from northern Egypt through Israel and Jordan to the shores of the Persian Gulf, and then occurred independently in other regions of the world at different times from 11,000 years ago.

Recent evidence, however, has suggested that the first stirrings of the revolution began even earlier, perhaps as far back as 19,000 years ago. Stimulating this reinterpretation of human prehistory are discoveries by the Epipalaeolithic Foragers in Azraq Project (EFAP), a group of archaeologists and bioarchaeologists working in the Jordanian desert comprising ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Dr Jay Stock, Dr Lisa Maher ( ̽��ֱ�� of California, Berkeley) and Dr Tobias Richter ( ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen).

Over the past four years, their research has uncovered dramatic evidence of changes in the behaviour of hunter-gatherers that casts new light on agriculture’s origins, as Dr Stock described: “Our work suggests that these hunter-gatherer communities were starting to congregate in large numbers in specific places, build architecture and show more-complex ritual and symbolic burial practices – signs of a greater attachment to a location and a changing pattern of social complexity that imply they were on the trajectory toward agriculture.”

Fertile Crescent

Working at the fringes of the Fertile Crescent, at sites in the Azraq Basin and the marshlands of Jordan, the EFAP team is excavating the archaeological remains of the hunter-gatherers who occupied the region. Such sites have been under studied, said Dr Stock: “Because these early hunter-gatherers have been perceived as building only transient camp sites, they have been largely disregarded in explanations of the development of agriculture. Instead, excavations have focused on the later ‘Natufian’ period, beginning around 14,500 years ago, since this period more clearly shows cultural precursors of the transition to agriculture.”

Today, the Azraq Basin is a 12,000 sq km area of dusty, wind-blown desert, and a very challenging place to work. Temperatures can soar to 45°C, requiring the researchers to start field work at 5 am and finish by midday when the heat and winds become too strong to allow work to continue.

But when the first humans were leaving Africa, the open grasslands and lush marshlands of the Fertile Crescent teemed with gazelle, antelope and plant life. Given this region is situated at the crossroads between Africa and the rest of the world, it is perhaps unsurprising that it should be the site of regional agricultural innovation.

Few previous archaeological excavations have been carried out in this inhospitable terrain, most instead focusing on regions closer to the Mediterranean. With funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the researchers set out four years ago to redress the balance.

Complex burials

Dr Stock’s expertise lies in the analysis of hunter-gatherer bones. Over the past 15 years, he has analysed over 1,400 skeletons from around the world to understand what it is about early humans that made them such successful colonisers of the natural environment.

One of the most startling of the researchers’ findings in Jordan has been the hunter-gatherer graves. Evidence suggests that, far from simple burials, the hunter-gatherers had elaborate mortuary and sociocultural practices. In one grave in ʻAyn Qasiyya, an adult male was placed in marshland in a sitting position, and was likely to have been tightly wrapped in cloth. A previous finding by another archaeologist at Kharaneh IV was a burial of an older man underneath a hut floor, his age suggesting that he would have required the care of others in life.

At another site, ‘Uyun-al-Hammam, a ̽��ֱ�� of Toronto-based project led by Dr Maher has excavated a total of 11 burials, some of which show elaborate mortuary treatments. Indeed, one grave that includes a human buried together with a fox, said Dr Maher: “suggests a close emotional or symbolic tie between humans and foxes prior to the first domesticated animal – the dog – and shows continuity in burial and social practices with the later Neolithic”. Dr Stock’s study of the human remains demonstrates that these people were ancestral to the later farmers.

̽��ֱ��researchers argue that these examples may represent an increasing cultural sophistication and a greater complexity in the relationship between humans and animals – trends that had only previously been identified in later time periods.

Mega camp site

A major focus of the work of the EFAP team over the past four years has been the excavation of the site of Kharaneh IV, in the Azraq Desert of eastern Jordan. ̽��ֱ��site is much more than the sort of temporary camp site normally ascribed to hunter-gatherer groups. Covering almost two hectares, the 19,000-year-old site was occupied for 1,200 years and is, as Dr Stock described, “so huge, it’s the earliest sign of human activity that is large enough to be visible on Google Earth.”

“To produce the debris of stone tools and bones, in some places almost 3 m deep, we believe that many groups of hunter-gatherers would meet and live together for several months of the year before splitting into mobile groups at other times.”

̽��ֱ��team is researching the area in astonishing detail – in a technique known as 100% flotation, every square centimetre excavated is floated to check for plant remains and charcoal. As Dr Richter pointed out: “even very small remains are providing very important clues towards our understanding of the relationship between prehistoric humans and their habitat”.

To date, they have found plant remains, animal bones carved with repeated incised motifs, stones carved with geometric patterns, stone tools in their thousands, hearths, pierced shells and, just recently, oval hut structures. As the work continues, all indications point towards an advanced cultural and technological complexity in the exploitation of bone, shell, plants and architecture. “ ̽��ֱ��size of the site, combined with evidence for huts and other symbolic goods, imply that Kharaneh IV was long-term and repeatedly occupied,” said Dr Stock. “It could be regarded as a precursor to later farming villages.”

̽��ֱ��revolution that wasn’t

̽��ֱ��team’s discoveries extend many aspects of the behavioural complexity associated with the Neolithic to about 10,000 years earlier, pushing back the true roots of the transition to agriculture.

“On evolutionary timescales, the transition to agriculture can undoubtedly be regarded in revolutionary terms,” said Dr Stock. “But, we can now see this as a culturally dynamic process that began much earlier than previously thought.”

“This picture would not have come together through the excavation of one site alone,” he added. “ ̽��ֱ��burial complexity of ʻUyun-al-Hammam and ʻAyn Qasiyya, together with the architecture and size of the settlement at Kharaneh IV, collectively offer glimpses of a protracted period in which humans worked through the cultural and biological changes that needed to happen before village life and the systematic exploitation of grain could emerge.”

Excavation of 19,000-year-old hunter-gatherer remains, including a vast camp site, is fuelling a reinterpretation of the greatest fundamental shift in human civilisation – the origins of agriculture.

Because these early hunter-gatherers have been perceived as building only transient camp sites, they have been largely disregarded in explanations of the development of agriculture.

Dr Jay Stock

EFAP/L.Maher

Kharaneh shells

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes

Was the fox prehistoric man’s best friend?

ns480 — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:53:55 +0000

Researchers analysing remains at a prehistoric burial ground in Jordan have uncovered a grave in which a fox was buried with a human, before part of it was then transferred to an adjacent grave.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge-led team believes that the unprecedented case points to some sort of emotional attachment between human and fox. Their paper, published today, suggests that the fox may have been kept as a pet and was being buried to accompany its master, or mistress, to the afterlife.

If so, it marks the first known burial of its kind and suggests that long before we began to hunt foxes using dogs, our ancestors were keeping them as pets - and doing so earlier than their canine relatives.

̽��ֱ��cemetery, at Uyun-al-Hammam, in northern Jordan, is about 16,500 years old, which makes the grave 4,000 years older than the earliest known human-dog burial and 7,000 years earlier than anything similar here involving a fox.

Writing in the open-access journal, PLoS One, the researchers also suggest that this early example of human-animal burial may be part of a bigger picture of growing cultural sophistication that has typically been associated with the farming societies of the Neolithic era, thousands of years later.

Sadly for fox-lovers, however, the relationship between man and that particular beast was probably short-lived. ̽��ֱ��paper also says it is unlikely that foxes were ever domesticated in full and that, despite their early head start, their recruitment as a friendly household pet fell by the wayside in later millennia as their human masters took to the more companionable dog instead.

" ̽��ֱ��burial site provides intriguing evidence of a relationship between humans and foxes which predates any comparable example of animal domestication," Dr Lisa Maher, from the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said.

"What we appear to have found is a case where a fox was killed and buried with its owner. Later, the grave was reopened for some reason and the human's body was moved. But because the link between the fox and human had been significant, the fox was moved as well, so that the person, or people, would still be accompanied by it in the afterlife."

̽��ֱ��research focused on the contents of two particular graves at Uyun-al-Hammam, which is situated on an ancient river terrace in the small river valley of Wadi Ziqlab. ̽��ֱ��site has been one of major interest for archaeologists since the first graves were opened in 2005 because it provides a rich source of information about the so-called early Epipalaeolithic period, 16,500 years ago.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge-led team spotted a connection between Grave I on the site and Grave VIII, which lies beside it but was only opened more recently. In the first, they identified the remains of two adults, probably a man and a woman.

̽��ֱ��man had been buried earlier than the woman, and alongside him were the skull and humerus of a fox, as well as other grave goods.

It was only when Grave VIII was opened, however, that the researchers found both human remains that may have belonged to the same man, and the skeletal remnants of what was, almost certainly, the same fox. ̽��ֱ��fox skeleton was complete apart from its skull and right humerus - which is exactly what they had already found in the adjacent grave. Further studies indicated that the remains were indeed those of a red fox.

̽��ֱ��movement of the body parts is believed to be highly significant. If the human body is the same in both cases, then none of the other grave goods except the fox were considered worth moving, strongly suggesting that the fox had some sort of special relationship to the human.

Other such cases are very rare. Many of the next earliest involve dogs, including one site in Israel where a woman was buried with her hand resting on a puppy, but even they are about 4,000 years younger than Uyun-al-Hammam.

" ̽��ֱ��very first evidence of dog domestication in the Near East involves a burial of a puppy with a human," Dr. Jay Stock, also from the Leverhulme Centre at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said. "It's easy to imagine that the similarly-sized fox was also viewed by prehistoric people as a potential companion in the same way. Clearly, it had significant social status."

Studies carried out on foxes suggest that they can be brought under human control, but that the process is not easy because they are skittish and timid by nature. Perhaps for that reason, the researchers suggest, dogs ultimately achieved "best friend" status among humans instead.

Early humans may have preferred the fox to the dog as an animal companion, new archaeological findings suggest.

̽��ֱ��burial site provides intriguing evidence of a relationship between humans and foxes which predates any comparable example of animal domestication.

Dr Lisa Maher

fox

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes