̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

̽��ֱ��tale of the tomb of Thutmose II

fpjl2 — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 12:15:24 +0000

Cambridge ̽��ֱ��'s Dr Judith Bunbury is Deputy Mission Director of the archaeological project in the Theban Mountain area that found the lost tomb of Thutmose II.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Awards 2024 for Research Impact and Engagement

zs332 — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 10:27:01 +0000

Meet the winner of the Cambridge Awards 2024 for Research Impact and Engagement and learn more about their projects.

Revealed: face of 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal from cave where species buried their dead

fpjl2 — Thu, 02 May 2024 06:46:45 +0000

A new documentary has recreated the face of a 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal whose flattened skull was discovered and rebuilt from hundreds of bone fragments by a team of archaeologists and conservators led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Research reveals ‘cosy domesticity’ of prehistoric stilt-house dwellers in England’s ancient marshland

fpjl2 — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 08:57:27 +0000

Detailed reports on thousands of artefacts pulled from “Britain’s Pompeii” reveals the surprisingly sophisticated domestic lives of Bronze Age Fen folk, from home interiors to recipes, clothing, kitchenware and pets.

Roman ‘backwater’ bucked Empire’s decline, archaeologists reveal

ta385 — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 06:30:00 +0000

A rare roofed theatre, markets, warehouses, a river port and other startling discoveries made by a Cambridge-led team of archaeologists challenge major assumptions about the decline of Roman Italy.

First hominin muscle reconstruction shows 3.2 million-year-old ‘Lucy’ could stand as erect as we can

fpjl2 — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 05:44:09 +0000

A Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� researcher has digitally reconstructed the missing soft tissue of an early human ancestor – or hominin – for the first time, revealing a capability to stand as erect as we do today.

Dr Ashleigh Wiseman has 3D-modelled the leg and pelvis muscles of the hominin Australopithecus afarensis using scans of ‘Lucy’: the famous fossil specimen discovered in Ethiopia in the mid-1970s.

Australopithecus afarensis was an early human species that lived in East Africa over three million years ago. Shorter than us, with an ape-like face and smaller brain, but able to walk on two legs, it adapted to both tree and savannah dwelling – helping the species survive for almost a million years.

Named for the Beatles classic ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, Lucy is one of the most complete examples to be unearthed of any type of Australopithecus – with 40% of her skeleton recovered.

Wiseman was able to use recently published open source data on the Lucy fossil to create a digital model of the 3.2 million-year-old hominin’s lower body muscle structure. ̽��ֱ��study is published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

̽��ֱ��research recreated 36 muscles in each leg, most of which were much larger in Lucy and occupied greater space in the legs compared to modern humans.

For example, major muscles in Lucy’s calves and thighs were over twice the size of those in modern humans, as we have a much higher fat to muscle ratio. Muscles made up 74% of the total mass in Lucy’s thigh, compared to just 50% in humans.

Paleoanthropologists agree that Lucy was bipedal, but disagree on how she walked. Some have argued that she moved in a crouching waddle, similar to chimpanzees – our common ancestor – when they walk on two legs. Others believe that her movement was closer to our own upright bipedalism.

Research in the last 20 years have seen a consensus begin to emerge for fully erect walking, and Wiseman’s work adds further weight to this. Lucy’s knee extensor muscles, and the leverage they would allow, confirm an ability to straighten the knee joints as much as a healthy person can today.

“Lucy’s ability to walk upright can only be known by reconstructing the path and space that a muscle occupies within the body,” said Wiseman, from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

“We are now the only animal that can stand upright with straight knees. Lucy’s muscles suggest that she was as proficient at bipedalism as we are, while possibly also being at home in the trees. Lucy likely walked and moved in a way that we do not see in any living species today,” Wiseman said.

“Australopithecus afarensis would have roamed areas of open wooded grassland as well as more dense forests in East Africa around 3 to 4 million years ago. These reconstructions of Lucy’s muscles suggest that she would have been able to exploit both habitats effectively.”

Lucy was a young adult, who stood at just over one metre tall and probably weighed around 28kg. Lucy’s brain would have been roughly a third of the size of ours.

To recreate the muscles of this hominin, Wiseman started with some living humans. Using MRI and CT scans of the muscle and bone structures of a modern woman and man, she was able to map the “muscle paths” and build a digital musculoskeletal model.

Wiseman then used existing virtual models of Lucy’s skeleton to 'rearticulate' the joints – that is, put the skeleton back together. This work defined the axis from which each joint was able to move and rotate, replicating how they moved during life.

Finally, muscles were layered on top, based on pathways from modern human muscle maps, as well as what little “muscle scarring” was discernible (the traces of muscle connection detectable on the fossilised bones). “Without open access science, this research would not have been possible,” said Wiseman.

These reconstructions can now help scientists understand how this human ancestor walked. “Muscle reconstructions have already been used to gauge running speeds of a T-Rex, for example,” said Wiseman. “By applying similar techniques to ancestral humans, we want to reveal the spectrum of physical movement that propelled our evolution – including those capabilities we have lost.”

Reference:
Ashleigh L. A. Wiseman. 'Three-dimensional volumetric muscle reconstruction of the Australopithecus afarensis pelvis and limb, with estimations of limb leverage.' Royal Society Open Science (2023). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.230356

Digital modelling of legendary fossil’s soft tissue suggests Australopithecus afarensis had powerful leg and pelvic muscles suited to tree dwelling, but knee muscles that allowed fully erect walking.

Lucy’s muscles suggest that she was as proficient at bipedalism as we are

Dr Ashleigh Wiseman

A cross-section of the polygonal muscle modelling approach, guided by muscle scarring and MRI data.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Developmental dyslexia essential to human adaptive success, study argues

cg605 — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 23:00:00 +0000

Cambridge researchers studying cognition, behaviour and the brain have concluded that people with dyslexia are specialised to explore the unknown. This is likely to play a fundamental role in human adaptation to changing environments.

They think this ‘explorative bias’ has an evolutionary basis and plays a crucial role in our survival.

Based on these findings − which were apparent across multiple domains from visual processing to memory and at all levels of analysis − the researchers argue that we need to change our perspective of dyslexia as a neurological disorder.

̽��ֱ��findings, reported today in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, have implications both at the individual and societal level, says lead author Dr Helen Taylor, an affiliated Scholar at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and a Research Associate at the ̽��ֱ�� of Strathclyde.

“ ̽��ֱ��deficit-centred view of dyslexia isn’t telling the whole story,” said Taylor. “This research proposes a new framework to help us better understand the cognitive strengths of people with dyslexia.”

She added: “We believe that the areas of difficulty experienced by people with dyslexia result from a cognitive trade-off between exploration of new information and exploitation of existing knowledge, with the upside being an explorative bias that could explain enhanced abilities observed in certain realms like discovery, invention and creativity.”

This is the first-time a cross-disciplinary approach using an evolutionary perspective has been applied in the analysis of studies on dyslexia.

“Schools, academic institutes and workplaces are not designed to make the most of explorative learning. But we urgently need to start nurturing this way of thinking to allow humanity to continue to adapt and solve key challenges,” said Taylor.

Dyslexia is found in up to 20% of the general population, irrespective of country, culture and world region. It is defined by the World Federation of Neurology as 'a disorder in children who, despite conventional classroom experience, fail to attain the language skills of reading, writing and spelling commensurate with their intellectual abilities'.

̽��ֱ��new findings are explained in the context of ‘Complementary Cognition’, a theory proposing that our ancestors evolved to specialise in different, but complementary, ways of thinking, which enhances human’s ability to adapt through collaboration.

These cognitive specialisations are rooted in a well-known trade-off between exploration of new information and exploitation of existing knowledge. For example, if you eat all the food you have, you risk starvation when it’s all gone. But if you spend all your time exploring for food, you’re wasting energy you don’t need to waste. As in any complex system, we must ensure we balance our need to exploit known resources and explore new resources to survive.

“Striking the balance between exploring for new opportunities and exploiting the benefits of a particular choice is key to adaptation and survival and underpins many of the decisions we make in our daily lives,” said Taylor.

Exploration encompasses activities that involve searching the unknown such as experimentation, discovery and innovation. In contrast, exploitation is concerned with using what's already known including refinement, efficiency and selection.

“Considering this trade-off, an explorative specialisation in people with dyslexia could help explain why they have difficulties with tasks related to exploitation, such as reading and writing.

“It could also explain why people with dyslexia appear to gravitate towards certain professions that require exploration-related abilities, such as arts, architecture, engineering, and entrepreneurship.”

̽��ֱ��researchers found that their findings aligned with evidence from several other fields of research. For example, an explorative bias in such a large proportion of the population indicates that our species must have evolved during a period of high uncertainty and change. This concurs with findings in the field of paleoarchaeology, revealing that human evolution was shaped over hundreds of thousands of years by dramatic climatic and environmental instability.

̽��ֱ��researchers highlight that collaboration between individuals with different abilities could help explain the exceptional capacity of our species to adapt.

̽��ֱ��findings are published today in the journal, Frontiers in Psychology.

̽��ֱ��research was funded by the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, ̽��ֱ�� of Strathclyde.

In more depth

Taylor, H and Vestergaard MD: 'Developmental Dyslexia: Disorder or Specialization in Exploration?' Frontiers in Psychology (June 2022). DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.889245

Find out more about Dr. Helen Taylor (Originator of ̽��ֱ��Evolution of Complementary Cognition) @DrHelenTaylorCC:

Researchers say people with Developmental Dyslexia have specific strengths relating to exploring the unknown that have contributed to the successful adaptation and survival of our species.

“ ̽��ֱ��deficit-centred view of dyslexia isn’t telling the whole story. This research proposes a new framework to help us better understand the cognitive strengths of people with dyslexia.”

Dr Helen Taylor

Catherine Falls Commercial / Moment via Getty Images

Young boy steadily makes his way through a dense forest of trees and cow parsley. He stands out in the green in his bright red jumper.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Licence type:

Public Domain

Anglo-Saxon kings were mostly veggie but peasants treated them to huge BBQs

ta385 — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 13:00:00 +0000

Very few people in England ate large amounts of meat before the Vikings settled, and there is no evidence that elites ate more meat than other people, a major new bioarchaeological study suggests. But its sister study also argues that peasants occasionally hosted lavish meat feasts for their rulers. Their findings overturn major assumptions about early medieval English history.