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A project for the deciphering of ancient papyri found in Graeco-Roman Egypt has recruited armchair archaeologists from around the world with amazing results.

The Ancient Lives project is a collaboration between the University of Oxford, the Egypt Exploration Society, the Citizen Science Alliance and others asking for anyone who can identify Greek letters to work on-line and decipher the writing on digital scans of papyri from Oxyrhynchus in Upper Egypt. Then, scholars, with the use of special online tools, carry out the translation. The latest finds were presented yesterday by Dirk Obbink, associate professor in Papyrology and Greek Literature from the University of Oxford.

The papyri, dating mainly from the 1st Century BC to the 7th Century AD, when Egypt was occupied by the Greeks and Romans, were discovered by Victorian archaeologists Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt in January 1897, at what turned out to be a rubbish dump at Oxyrhynchus, an ancient city about 160m south-west of Cairo. The excavations yielded 700 boxes of documents which were shipped to Oxford for study, owned by the Egypt Exploration Society in London.

Transcribing them, however, was really time-consuming, allowing experts to transcribe over 5,000 out of the 500,000 documents between 1898 and 2012. That’s when the Ancient Lives project was piloted, asking citizen scientists from all over the world to help scientists decipher the writing on the papyri online. The project went fully live in 2014 and with the use of algorithms to help experts assess the accuracy of the work by volunteers, it has allowed a variety of individuals across the globe to participate.

The Oxyrhynchus fragments have revealed personal documents of various use, from tax assessments, grocery lists and mariage certificates, ancient remedies, to court records and pieces of literature by Sappho Euripides and Homer. Fragments of a lost tragedy by Sophocles, Andromeda, have also been found.

The results were announced by Dirk Obbink at a talk in London, held at the Royal Geographical Society and organised by the World Monuments Fund Britain.

For more on this story see:

• The Art Newspaper, http://theartnewspaper.com/news/news/armchair-archaeologists-reveal-details-of-life-in-ancient-egypt/ (29/02/2016) 

• The Independent, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/ancient-egypt-citizen-scientists-reveal-tales-of-tragedy-unearthed-from-centuries-old-rubbish-dump-a6905541.html (01/03/2016)

Working closely with the U.S. Forest Service and the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, an international team of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation has begun to piece together an archaeological and historical narrative of how the crew of the wrecked 19th century Russian-American Company sailing ship Neva survived the harsh subarctic winter.

"The items left behind by survivors provide a unique snapshot-in-time for January 1813, and might help us to understand the adaptations that allowed them to await rescue in a frigid, unfamiliar environment for almost a month," said Dave McMahan of the Sitka Historical Society.

McMahan is the principal investigator for the NSF award, which was made by the Arctic Sciences Section in NSF's Division of Polar Programs.

The wreck of the frigate Neva, which occurred near the city of Sitka, has been surrounded by stories and legends for two centuries. Although survivors eventually were rescued and taken to Sitka, few accounts of their experience were collected or published. No official records relating to the wreck and its aftermath have been discovered.

The researchers are seeking to verify the wreck location and confirm the site of a survivor camp. They also hope that Tlingit oral history will add to the story and help to place the wreck in a broader context.

The NSF-funded work stems from a 2012 survey project by the U.S. Forest Service, the Alaska Office of History and Archaeology and the Sitka Historical Society. At that time, archaeologists discovered caches of Russian axes at a location they predicted to be the survivor camp.

The archaeological team--which includes members from Russia, the U.S. and Canada--believes articles they found over the past two years represent the everyday tools used by 26 shipwrecked members of the Neva's crew. Those crewmembers survived for almost a month in the winter of 1813 by foraging and gathering materials that washed ashore from the wreck.

In July, researchers discovered at the campsite a series of hearths with early 19th century artifacts such as gun flints, musket balls, pieces of modified sheet copper, iron and copper spikes, a Russian axe, and a fishhook fashioned from copper. Well-preserved food middens--or refuse heaps--will allow reconstruction of the foraging strategies the sailors used to survive.

Gun flints found at the site appeared to have been used by survivors to used start fires, by striking them against steel. Historical accounts credit a firearm used in this manner with helping save the crew from hypothermia. Physical evidence indicates the survivors tried to whittle down musket balls to fit a smaller caliber weapon, such as a flintlock--most likely the same firearm mentioned in the historical accounts. Some of the copper spikes recovered by archaeologists had been broken through shear stress, such as a wreck would produce. The researchers believe one copper or brass artifact is part of a set of a navigator's dividers, saved by a crewman as the ship violently broke apart over rocks.

The nature of the artifacts seems to strongly indicate that survivors of the shipwreck were active in ensuring their own survival. They modified wreckage in desperation, but with ingenuity.

"Collectively, the artifacts reflect improvisation in a survival situation, and do not include ceramics, glass and other materials that would be associated with a settlement," McMahan said.

Because the wreck occurred in an area of profound cultural significance to the Tlingit people of Sitka, the team did not search for--nor did it inadvertently discover--any graves of those who perished.

A famed vessel

Before its Arctic demise, the Neva was famous as one of two vessels that completed the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe from 1803-1807. The ship later fought in the 1804 Battle of Sitka, a pivotal engagement in the Russian struggle for control over what was then the Alaska territory. After 1808, the ship was in the exclusive service of the Russian-American Company, which Tsar Paul I chartered to establish new settlements in Russian America, primarily Alaska, and carry out a program of colonization.

The Neva came to grief after leaving the Siberian port of Okhotsk for Sitka in late August of 1812, McMahan said. During a grueling three-month voyage, those on board endured water shortages and sickness. Fierce storms damaged the ship's rigging. In mid-November the weakened sailors finally found shelter in Alaska's Prince William Sound and, after much debate, made a desperate attempt to reach Sitka.

In favorable weather, they almost reached their destination before wrecking off Kruzof Island. The wreck killed 32; another 15 had already died at sea. Of the 28 who made it to shore, 26 survived for almost a month before their rescue.

McMahan said the team hopes to continue the investigation next year with a smaller field effort at the camp. The terrestrial archaeology is only one component of research, which also includes underwater work and archival research, he said. Thick kelp that obscured the sea floor and interfered with sonar hampered an underwater survey this season. McMahan and Evguenia Anitchenko, the project's archival coordinator, conducted research in St. Petersburg last September, and plan to do the same later this year in London, where the Neva was built.

In an effort to put together the most complete story possible, McMahan is also encouraging anyone with information or oral history pertaining to the Neva to contact him through the Sitka Historical Society. "One goal of the research is to replace some of the myths and 'lore of the sea' with scientific findings," he said.

Longer-range plans for the project include a "virtual museum" with 3-D scans of artifacts, along with a short film that can be used in local educational curricula.

Source: National Science Foundation [September 10, 2015]

The world's fastest land animal, the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), is sprinting towards the edge of extinction and could soon be lost forever unless urgent, landscape-wide conservation action is taken, according to a study published today in the journal >Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Led by Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Panthera and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the study reveals that just 7,100 cheetahs remain globally, representing the best available estimate for the species to date. Furthermore, the cheetah has been driven out of 91% of its historic range. Asiatic cheetah populations have been hit hardest, with fewer than 50 individuals remaining in one isolated pocket of Iran.

Due to the species' dramatic decline, the study's authors are calling for the cheetah to be up-listed from 'Vulnerable' to 'Endangered' on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Typically, greater international conservation support, prioritization and attention are granted to wildlife classified as 'Endangered', in efforts to stave off impending extinction.

Dr. Sarah Durant, ZSL/WCS lead author and Project Leader for the Rangewide Conservation Program for Cheetah and African Wild Dog, said: "This study represents the most comprehensive analysis of cheetah status to date. Given the secretive nature of this elusive cat, it has been difficult to gather hard information on the species, leading to its plight being overlooked. Our findings show that the large space requirements for cheetah, coupled with the complex range of threats faced by the species in the wild, mean that it is likely to be much more vulnerable to extinction than was previously thought."

Durant continued, "We have worked with range state governments and the cheetah conservation community to put in place comprehensive frameworks for action to save the species, but funds and resources are needed to implement them. The recent decisions made at the CITES CoP17 meeting in Johannesburg represent a significant breakthrough particularly in terms of stemming the illegal flow of live cats trafficked out of the Horn of Africa region. However, concerted action is needed to reverse ongoing declines in the face of accelerating land use changes across the continent."

While renowned for its speed and spots, the degree of persecution cheetahs face both inside and outside of protected areas is largely unrecognized. Even within guarded parks and reserves, cheetahs rarely escape the pervasive threats of human-wildlife conflict, prey loss due to overhunting by people, habitat loss and the illegal trafficking of cheetah parts and trade as exotic pets.

To make matters worse, as one of the world's most wide-ranging carnivores, 77% of the cheetah's habitat falls outside of protected areas. Unrestricted by boundaries, the species' wide-ranging movements weaken law enforcement protection and greatly amplify its vulnerability to human pressures. Indeed, largely due to pressures on wildlife and their habitat outside of protected areas, Zimbabwe's cheetah population has plummeted from 1,200 to a maximum of 170 animals in just 16 years -- representing an astonishing loss of 85% of the country's cheetahs.

Scientists are now calling for an urgent paradigm shift in cheetah conservation, towards landscape-level efforts that transcend national borders and are coordinated by existing regional conservation strategies for the species. A holistic conservation approach, which incentivises protection of cheetahs by local communities and trans-national governments, alongside sustainable human-wildlife coexistence is paramount to the survival of the species.

Panthera's Cheetah Program Director, Dr. Kim Young-Overton, shared, "We've just hit the reset button in our understanding of how close cheetahs are to extinction. The take-away from this pinnacle study is that securing protected areas alone is not enough. We must think bigger, conserving across the mosaic of protected and unprotected landscapes that these far-ranging cats inhabit, if we are to avert the otherwise certain loss of the cheetah forever."

The methodology used for this study will also be relevant to other species, such as African wild dogs, which also require large areas of land to prosper and are therefore similarly vulnerable to increasing threats outside designated protected areas.

Source: Panthera [December 26, 2016]

The leopard (Panthera pardus), one of the world's most iconic big cats, has lost as much as 75 percent of its historic range, according to a paper >published in the scientific journal PeerJ. Conducted by partners including the National Geographic Society's Big Cats Initiative, international conservation charities the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Panthera and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Cat Specialist Group, this study represents the first known attempt to produce a comprehensive analysis of leopards' status across their entire range and all nine subspecies.

The research found that leopards historically occupied a vast range of approximately 35 million square kilometers (13.5 million square miles) throughout Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Today, however, they are restricted to approximately 8.5 million square kilometers (3.3 million square miles).

To obtain their findings, the scientists spent three years reviewing more than 1,300 sources on the leopard's historic and current range. The results appear to confirm conservationists' suspicions that, while the entire species is not yet as threatened as some other big cats, leopards are facing a multitude of growing threats in the wild, and three subspecies have already been almost completely eradicated.

Lead author Andrew Jacobson, of ZSL's Institute of Zoology, University College London and the National Geographic Society's Big Cats Initiative, stated: "The leopard is a famously elusive animal, which is likely why it has taken so long to recognize its global decline. This study represents the first of its kind to assess the status of the leopard across the globe and all nine subspecies. Our results challenge the conventional assumption in many areas that leopards remain relatively abundant and not seriously threatened."

In addition, the research found that while African leopards face considerable threats, particularly in North and West Africa, leopards have also almost completely disappeared from several regions across Asia, including much of the Arabian Peninsula and vast areas of former range in China and Southeast Asia. The amount of habitat in each of these regions is plummeting, having declined by nearly 98 percent.

"Leopards' secretive nature, coupled with the occasional, brazen appearance of individual animals within megacities like Mumbai and Johannesburg, perpetuates the misconception that these big cats continue to thrive in the wild—when actually our study underlies the fact that they are increasingly threatened," said Luke Dollar, co-author and program director of the National Geographic Society's Big Cats Initiative.

Philipp Henschel, co-author and Lion Program survey coordinator for Panthera, stated: "A severe blind spot has existed in the conservation of the leopard. In just the last 12 months, Panthera has discovered the status of the leopard in Southeast Asia is as perilous as the highly endangered tiger." Henschel continued: "The international conservation community must double down in support of initiatives — protecting the species. Our next steps in this very moment will determine the leopard's fate."

Co-author Peter Gerngross, with the Vienna, Austria-based mapping firm BIOGEOMAPS, added: "We began by creating the most detailed reconstruction of the leopard's historic range to date. This allowed us to compare detailed knowledge on its current distribution with where the leopard used to be and thereby calculate the most accurate estimates of range loss. This research represents a major advancement for leopard science and conservation."

Leopards are capable of surviving in human-dominated landscapes provided they have sufficient cover, access to wild prey and tolerance from local people. In many areas, however, habitat is converted to farmland and native herbivores are replaced with livestock for growing human populations. This habitat loss, prey decline, conflict with livestock owners, illegal trade in leopard skins and parts and legal trophy hunting are all factors contributing to leopard decline.

Complicating conservation efforts for the leopard, Jacobson noted: "Our work underscores the pressing need to focus more research on the less studied subspecies, three of which have been the subject of fewer than five published papers during the last 15 years. Of these subspecies, one—the Javan leopard (P. p. melas)—is currently classified as critically endangered by the IUCN, while another—the Sri Lankan leopard (P. p. kotiya)—is classified as endangered, highlighting the urgent need to understand what can be done to arrest these worrying declines."

Despite this troubling picture, some areas of the world inspire hope. Even with historic declines in the Caucasus Mountains and the Russian Far East/Northeast China, leopard populations in these areas appear to have stabilized and may even be rebounding with significant conservation investment through the establishment of protected areas and increased anti-poaching measures.

"Leopards have a broad diet and are remarkably adaptable," said Joseph Lemeris Jr., a National Geographic Society's Big Cats Initiative researcher and paper co-author. "Sometimes the elimination of active persecution by government or local communities is enough to jumpstart leopard recovery. However, with many populations ranging across international boundaries, political cooperation is critical."

Source: PeerJ [May 03, 2016]

A miniature ancient Egyptian coffin measuring just 44cm in length has been found to contain the youngest ever example of a human foetus to be embalmed and buried in Egyptian society. This discovery is the only academically verified specimen to exist at only sixteen to eighteen weeks of gestation.

This landmark discovery from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, is remarkable evidence of the importance that was placed on official burial rituals in ancient Egypt, even for those lives that were lost so early on in their existence. Curators at the Fitzwilliam made the discovery, during their research for the pioneering bicentennial exhibition Death on the Nile: Uncovering the afterlife of ancient Egypt.

The tiny coffin was excavated at Giza in 1907 by the British School of Archaeology and came into the collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum the same year. It is a perfect miniature example of a wooden coffin of the ancient Egyptian ‘Late Period’ and may date to around 664-525 BC. The lid and box are both made from cedar wood. Although the coffin is deteriorated, it is clear that the wood was carefully carved on a painstakingly small scale and decorated. This gave the curators at the Fitzwilliam the first very clear indication of the importance given to the coffin’s contents at this time in ancient Egyptian society.

The diminutive wrapped package inside was carefully bound in bandages, over which molten black resin had been poured before the coffin was closed. For many years it was thought that the contents were the mummified remains of internal organs that were routinely removed during the embalming of bodies.

Examination using X-ray imaging at the Fitzwilliam Museum was inconclusive, but suggested that it may contain a small skeleton. It was therefore decided to micro CT (computed tomography) scan the tiny bundle at Cambridge University’s Department of Zoology. The cross-sectional images this produced gave the first pictures of the remains of a tiny human body held within the wrappings, which remain undisturbed.

Dr Tom Turmezei, recently Honorary Consultant Radiologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge collaborated with the Fitzwilliam Museum, alongside Dr. Owen Arthurs, Academic Consultant Paediatric Radiologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London. The ground-breaking results were based on their extensive knowledge of CT imaging and paediatric autopsy.

Five digits on both hands and feet and the long bones of the legs and arms were all clearly visible. Although the soft skull and pelvis were found to be collapsed the categorical consensus was that inside the bundle was a human foetus estimated to be of no more than eighteen weeks gestation. It was impossible to give a gender to the specimen and it is thought that the foetus was probably the result of a miscarriage, as there were no obvious abnormalities to explain why it could not have been carried to full-term.

From the micro CT scan it is noticeable that the foetus has its arms crossed over its chest. This, coupled with the intricacy of the tiny coffin and its decoration, are clear indications of the importance and time given to this burial in Egyptian society.

"CT imaging has been used successfully by the museum for several projects in recent years, but this is our most successful find so far," Dr. Tom Turmezei explained. "The ability of CT to show the inner workings of such artefacts without causing any structural damage proved even more invaluable in this case, allowing us to review the foetus for abnormalities and attempt to age it as accurately as possible."

Julie Dawson, Head of Conservation at the Fitzwilliam Museum said, "Using non-invasive modern technology to investigate this extraordinary archaeological find has provided us with striking evidence of how an unborn child might be viewed in ancient Egyptian society. The care taken in the preparation of this burial clearly demonstrates the value placed on life even in the first weeks of its inception."

Tutankhamun’s tomb contained two small foetuses that had been mummified and placed in individual coffins, but these infants were both significantly more developed, at about 25 weeks and 37 weeks into gestation. Very few other examples of burials of miscarried babies have so far been identified from ancient Egypt.

The miniature coffin is currently on display as part of the exhibition >Death on the Nile: Uncovering the Afterlife of ancient Egypt until 22nd May 2016 at the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge.

Source: University of Cambridge [May 12, 2016]

Industrialized nations that view wildfire as the enemy have much to learn from people in some parts of the world who have learned to live compatibly with wildfire, says a team of fire research scientists.

The interdisciplinary team say there is much to be learned from these "fire-adaptive communities" and they are calling on policy makers to tap that knowledge, particularly in the wake of global warming.

Such a move is critical as climate change makes some landscapes where fire isn't the norm even more prone to fire, say the scientists in a new report published in a special issue of the >Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

"We tend to treat modern fire problems as unique, and new to our planet," said fire anthropologist Christopher Roos, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, lead author of the report. "As a result, we have missed the opportunity to recognize the successful properties of communities that have a high capacity to adapt to living in flammable landscapes—in some cases for centuries or millennia."

One such society is the ethnically Basque communities in the French Western Pyrenees, who practice fire management to maintain seasonally flammable grassland, shrub and woodland patches for forage and grazing animals. But the practice is slowly being lost as young people leave farming.

Additionally, Aboriginal people in the grasslands of Western Australia use fire as part of their traditional hunting practices. Children begin burning at a very young age, and the everyday practice is passed down. These fires improve hunting successes but also reduce the impact of drought on the size and ecological severity of lightning fires.

Social institutions support individual benefits, preserve common good

Fire-adaptive communities have social institutions in place that support individual benefits from fire-maintained landscapes while preserving the common good, said Roos, whose fire research includes long-term archaeological and ecological partnerships with the Pueblo of Jemez in New Mexico.

"These institutions have been shaped by long-histories with wildfire, appropriate fire-use, and the development of social mechanisms to adjudicate conflicts of interest," said Roos, an associate professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology. "There is a wealth of tried and tested information that should be considered in designing local fire management."

The authors note that globally, a large number of people use fire as a tool to sustain livelihoods in ways that have been handed down across many generations. These include indigenous Australians and North Americans, South Asian forest dwellers, European farmers, and also hunters, farmers and herders in tropical savannahs.

Global Warming will likely bring new fire problems, more flammable landscapes

Global Warming will likely bring new fire problems, such as making some landscapes more flammable, Roos said. More effort will be required to balance conflicting fire management practices between adjacent cultures. Currently most fire-related research tends to be undertaken by physical or biological scientists from Europe, the United States and Australia. Often the research treats fire challenges as exclusively contemporary phenomena for which history is either absent or irrelevant.

"We need national policy that recognizes these dynamic challenges and that will support local solutions and traditional fire knowledge, while providing ways to disseminate scientific information about fire," Roos said.

The authors point out that one of the greatest policy challenges of fire on a warming planet are the international consequences of smoke plumes and potential positive feedbacks on climate through carbon emissions. Most infamously, wildfire smoke plumes have had extraordinary health impacts during Southeast Asian "haze" events, which result in increased hospitalization and mortality in the region.

Not all fire is a disaster; we must learn to live with and manage fire

Carbon emissions from wildfires can be as much as 40 percent of fossil fuel emissions in any given year over the last decade. Although only deforestation fires and land conversion are a net carbon source to the atmosphere, the contribution of wildfires to global carbon emissions is non-trivial and should be a formal component of international climate dialogs.

"It is important to emphasize that not all fire is a disaster and we must learn how to both live with as well as manage fire," said co-author Andrew Scott, earth sciences professor at Royal Holloway University of London.

The report, "Living on a flammable planet: interdisciplinary, cross-scalar and varied cultural lessons, prospects and challenges," was published May 23, 2016 by The Royal Society, the U.K.'s independent scientific academy.

Authors call for holistic study of fire on Earth

The authors are from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Spain. The synthesis emerged from four days of international meetings sponsored by the Royal Society - the first of its kind for fire sciences.

The authors advocate for greater collaboration among researchers studying all aspects of fire.

Pyrogeography—the holistic study of fire on Earth, "may be one way to provide unity to the varied fire research programs across the globe," the authors write.

"Fire researchers across disciplines from engineering, the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities need to develop a common language to create a holistic wildfire science," said Roos. "The magnitude of the wildfire challenges we face on a warming planet will demand greater collaboration and integration across disciplines, but our job won't be done unless we are also able to translate our research for policymakers, land managers, and the general public."

Source: Southern Methodist University [June 01, 2016]

In Angkor Wat research, the focus has long been on temples and high society. A new project there is taking a different approach, laying the foundation for a new understanding of the iconic empire

A team excavating a dirt mound at Angkor Wat is hoping to shed light on one of the enduring blank spots in archaeologists’ understanding of the Angkorian empire: the lives of its common people.

It’s a fresh direction in the field of Angkorian archaeology, according to the leader of the dig, Alison Carter, 35, an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney.

“We’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the temples and inscriptions and the elite members of the society, but there’s still so much that can be learned about the regular people who were contributing to the Angkorian empire. I hope that this project can spark some interest in those regular people,” she said this week.

Carter, an American who has been doing archaeology work in Cambodia for 10 years, said that her excavation was the first of its kind to focus directly on, what she believes to be, an Angkorian-era home.

The project, titled “Excavating Angkor: Household Archaeology at Angkor Wat” which began in early June and will continue through July, is funded primarily by the US-based National Geographic Society, as well as the Dumbarton Oaks institute. It is a part of the larger Greater Angkor Project, an umbrella research initiative managed by the University of Sydney and the APSARA Authority.

“This project is focused on excavating a house mound within the Angkor Wat enclosure. We’re trying to do a horizontal excavation. We’re not opening one huge trench but multiple trenches across this mound, and we’re doing that to try to understand where and how people are living,” Carter said.

“You could [call this] groundbreaking, not just because it is a good archaeological pun, but also because it does signal a shift in how people have been studying Angkor since the French began their research here.”

Carter and her international team are looking for artefacts of daily life – pots, utensils, food remains, gardens – hoping to piece together a picture of what life was like for the non-elite during and after the reign of the Angkor empire from circa 802AD to about 1463AD.

“Basically, anything that anyone does around the house and at home, we’re trying to find material evidence of that,” she added.

The idea for her project stemmed from a 2013 excavation within the Angkor Wat enclosure that found ceramics, cooking vessels, Chinese tradewares and other features that suggested human habitation. It was an important find, said Carter, but one that was largely overshadowed by the published results of another project: an extensive aerial laser surveying – known as lidar – of Angkor and its surrounding temples that was released around the time of the 2013 dig.

Along with evidence of daily activities, Carter and her team are also looking for signs of postholes in their mound.

“It’s a tricky process. It’s hard to study Angkorian houses because the houses themselves were above ground, so we’re using a variety of different strategies to try to pick up as much information as we possibly can,” she said.

Those strategies include methods that have not been used so far in the study of Angkor, such as soil analysis. Through several methods, including analysis of both macro and micro materials, team members can deduce a number of things from the dirt: where there might have been entryways, which areas were used for food preparation and areas where there may have been a garden.

Dougald O’Reilly, a senior lecturer in archaeology at the Australian National University, said that to date, most research of the Khmer empire had examined things mostly from a macro perspective.

“It is encouraging to see this type of work being undertaken to bring to light the subtle nuances of daily life at Angkor at the height of its power. It will bring a far more textured understanding of the past,” O’Reilly said.

Carter said that, due to a binding agreement with National Geographic, she was unable to disclose the specific details of what her team had discovered so far.

However, she did say that the team had discovered a lot of ceramics that seemed to be related to cooking.

“We’re finding evidence of how the mound was constructed and how people might have been living on it,” she said.

Team member Cristina Castillo, from University College London who is studying macrobotanical remains, said they hoped to continue the research in the residential areas to find out more about the local people’s diets and farming systems, which may have included horticultural activities adjacent to their residences.

“After all, rice was the staple, but they were eating a variety of crops, and fish and animals, as well,” she said.

Carter stressed that this excavation was just the beginning of what she hoped would be a renewed focus on the lives of regular Angkorians.

“Once we start getting a bigger data set of house mounds and households then we can really start seeing and saying a lot more about Angkorian society and what the daily lives of people were like,” she said.

“This is the power of archaeological research – to give a voice to these parts of the past.”

Author: Brent Crane | Source: The Phnom Penh Post [July 04, 2015]

Some 80 km southeast of Cairo is the small village of Karanis, once one of the largest Graeco-Roman towns in Fayoum. It was established in antiquity by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, as part of a scheme to settle Greek mercenaries among indigenous Egyptians and exploit the fertile Fayoum basin.

Karanis flourished until the end of the 3rd century CE, when the town started to decline due to troubles in the wider Roman Empire. The town was abandoned by the beginning of the 5th century, as part of momentous socioeconomic, political and religious changes taking place throughout the Mediterranean region.

The site was forgotten, buried by the sands, until the early 19th century when farmers unearthed papyri among organic debris left by the ancient inhabitants. It is these papyri, suitably conserved and restored, that have now been put on display at the Egyptian Museum.

Archaeological excavation, led by British Egyptologist Bernard Pyne Grenfell and papyrologist Arthur Surridge Hunt, started in Karanis in 1895. However, they did not continue their work, deciding that the site had been too plundered in antiquity to produce anything of value. The few papyri and artefacts they stumbled upon were not considered important enough to lead to a better understanding of the history of the site during the Graeco-Roman period.

In 1924 the archaeological rescue of the site began, continuing for the next 12 years under the leadership of an American mission from Michigan University directed by Francis W Kelsey. Two temples, residential houses and urban districts were discovered, along with cisterns, public baths and a collection of household objects of different shapes, sizes and materials. A large collection of papyri, now exhibited at the Kelsey Museum in Michigan in the US, was also unearthed.

The papyri are historically significant as they provide an idea of the lives led by the town’s inhabitants in ancient times, as well as of Egypt’s relationship with the Roman Empire. The papyri were written at the same time and unearthed from the same place, all of them written in Greek and dating to the period between the reign of the emperor Diocletian and the 370s CE.

“It is the dry climate of Karanis which preserved these papyri,” said German papyrologist Cornelia Römer, who noted that although the papyri had been taken to Michigan the university had given part of the collection back to Egypt in 1952. This part was then put in storage at the Egyptian Museum and had not been closely studied.

In 2010, Römer came to Egypt for excavation work in Fayoum, in an area called Filoteris, five km from Lake Qarun. She hoped to investigate drainage systems used in Fayoum during the Graeco-Roman period. But due to her interest in papyri and her desire to promote papyrology in Egypt, Römer started to study the Karanis papyri, often known as the Michigan papyri.

In collaboration with young restorers at the Egyptian Museum, Römer started conservation work on the papyri, which are of different sizes and in different conditions of conservation. Some of them are tiny fragments in a poor state of conservation, while others are larger and in a much better condition.

Romer then published the results of her work in collaboration with professors from Alexandria University and Cairo and Ain Shams Universities in Egypt.

“When I came face to face with the papyri, I was very excited as I could not have expected what I would find,” Römer told the Weekly. Her work concentrated on a group of papyri found in the house of a man called Socrates who lived in the 2nd century CE. He was a tax collector who went door to door to collect money from people for the Roman state.

“We knew his profession from papyri found inside his house, which include long lists of names and numbers,” Römer said, adding that he kept a register of who had paid what in the village. Studies of these lists revealed that people had to pay taxes for baths and guards, among other things. Tax rates were the same for everybody and did not depend on income.

The papyri show that Socrates was a rich man who gained a lot from his profession. In Roman times, Römer said, a tax collector typically took more than he needed to remit to the state. “Obviously, he was a clever and rich man in the village,” Römer said, adding that he lived in a large house located in the best area, was married, and had two sons and a daughter.

“From the names of Socrates’s family and the names written in the tax lists, we also know that ancient Karanis was a multicultural society,” Römer said. While Socrates bore a Greek name, his wife and two sons had Roman names, while his daughter had an Egyptian name and her husband had a Roman name. The names written on the lists are in Latin, Greek and Egyptian.

Römer said that when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BCE Egypt became part of the Hellenistic world. His former general, Ptolemy, established a Greek-speaking dynasty in the country that then ruled it for the next 300 years. Even after the beginning of Roman rule in 1st century BCE, tens of thousands of Greek-speaking people lived in Egypt, working in the army and administration of the country.

The Ptolemies created new settlements for the newcomers, including in Fayoum, a depression centred on Lake Qarun south of Cairo. A sophisticated system of canals and dams was built to lower the level of the lake. “Thousands of new fields were created and Fayoum was declared a new settlement to host the new settlers,” Römer said, adding that the town of Karanis was among these new settlements.

Study of the papyri show that the number of inhabitants in Karanis reached 1,500 people, two thirds of whom were Egyptians and one third Greek. In the 2nd century CE, when Socrates lived, the population reached nearly 4,000 people.

Along with tax records, Römer said that literary papyri had also been found. It seems that in order to fit into society in Karanis, Socrates thought it important to hone his Greek culture and read classical Greek literature.

“We found papyri of poems written by the Greek poet Homer and Greek plays written by the dramatist Menander who lived in 300 BCE,” Römer said. She added that this highlights the fact that people continued to read Menander’s comedies 450 years after they were written. Ancient Greek comedy “always has a happy ending,” Römer said. As well, fragments of a play called “A Man on Trial” were found.

She continued to say that among the papyri at the Egyptian Museum is a love letter written by an unidentified woman, as well as notifications of death and complaints about robberies. Among the latter was one presented by a man who was attacked and beaten on the road, and another by a farmer who lost some of his harvest to thieves.

“Studying these papyri has taken us deep into the daily life of this society,” Römer said. It has even been possible to identify the type of clothes people wore. One text complaining of a robbery said that a man broke into the author’s house and stole boxes of clothes, she said.

“Living standards in Karanis were lower than in Alexandria, the capital of Egypt at the time, but the inhabitants tried to imitate the life of the capital nonetheless,” Römer said.

The Greek comedy that Socrates had been reading was to the taste of people living in rural areas, whereas in Alexandria, tragedies considered too difficult for people in the provinces would have been read. “However, the existence of such literary texts indicates that residents were keen to show themselves to be well educated in Greek,” she added.

A medical handbook from the first century CE showing surgical techniques was also found. Part of it shows a dislocated shoulder and the recommended treatment to fix it. “This piece is a section of a papyrus roll and the other part is in the British Museum in London,” Römer told the Weekly.

The papyri will now be on display for three weeks in the temporary exhibition hall at the Egyptian Museum. The display includes information about Socrates and his family, his library and the excavation work carried out.

Clay and bronze statues depicting Greek and ancient Egyptian deities found in the houses of the town’s inhabitants are also on show, along with glass vessels of different shapes and sizes.

“I am very happy with the results of the collaboration with Egyptian restorers, and I aim to continue studying the rest of the Karanis papyri,” Römer said.

Author: Nevine El-Aref | Source: Al Ahram Weekly [February 12, 2015]

Some of the UK's leading nature experts have delivered a clarion call for action to help save many of the nation's native wildlife species from extinction.

A critical new report, called >State of Nature 2016 and published, delivered the clearest picture to date of the status of our native species across land and sea. Crucially, the report attributes much of the imposing threat to changing agricultural land management, climate change and sustained urban development. These threaten many of Britain's best loved species including water voles -- the fastest declining mammal.

The startling report reveals that more than half (56%) of UK species studied have declined since 1970, while more than one in ten (1,199 species) of the nearly 8000 species assessed in the UK are under threat of disappearing altogether.

The report, produced by a coalition of more than 50 leading wildlife and research organisations and specialists including Dr Fiona Mathews from the University of Exeter, demands immediate action to stave off the growing threat to Britain's unique wildlife.

Dr Mathews, an Associate Professor in Mammalian Biology at the University of Exeter and Chair of the Mammal Society, who helped write the report, said many British mammals are under pressure from house building and intensification of agriculture.

She said: "The reality is that our human population is expanding and we need urgently to work out how we can live alongside our wildlife. For example, water voles are one of our fastest declining species, and many thousands of kilometres of their habitat are affected by development every year.

"We are therefore researching ways to ensure their survival, supported by our water vole appeal fund. In the summer, we launched best-practice guidance on looking after water voles during development, and these are now being followed by industry, helping to ensure that "Ratty" survives on ponds, rivers and canals throughout the UK."

As the UK Government and devolved administrations move forward in the light of the EU Referendum result, there is an opportunity to secure world leading protection for our species and restoration of our nature. Now is the time to make ambitious decisions and significant investment in nature to ensure year-on-year improvement to the health and protection of the UK's nature and environment for future generations. The Mammal Society is currently drawing up a 'Red List' of the most threated species, to help ensure that scarce funds are directed to the animals most in need.

Dr Mathews added: "The findings emphasise that whole ecosystems, not just one or two species, are under threat.

"We are a nation of nature-lovers -- just look at the success of "Countryfile" and "Springwatch." Every week thousands of volunteers are out recording wildlife and helping with practical habitat management. We also depend on the natural environment for a huge number of goods and services, not to mention our own health and wellbeing.

"Yet successive governments have cut funding for the environment, and conservation concerns are all too often vilified as a barrier to urban development, infrastructure projects or efficient food production. This is a moment to reflect on what sort of country we want for our children -- a sustainable future for them depends on our decisions now."

The State of Nature 2016 UK report will be launched by Sir David Attenborough and UK conservation and research organisations at the Royal Society in London on Wednesday, September 14, while separate events will be held in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast over the next week.

Sir David Attenborough said: "The natural world is in serious trouble and it needs our help as never before. The rallying call issued after the State of Nature report in 2013 has promoted exciting and innovative conservation projects. Landscapes are being restored, special places defended, struggling species being saved and brought back. But we need to build significantly on this progress if we are to provide a bright future for nature and for people.

"The future of nature is under threat and we must work together -- -Governments, conservationists, businesses and individuals -- -to help it. Millions of people in the UK care very passionately about nature and the environment and I believe that we can work together to turn around the fortunes of wildlife."

In order to reduce the impact we are having on our wildlife, and to help struggling species, we needed to understand what's causing these declines. Using evidence from the last 50 years, experts have identified that significant and ongoing changes in agricultural practices are having the single biggest impact on nature.

The widespread decline of nature in the UK remains a serious problem to this day. For the first time scientists have uncovered how wildlife has fared in recent years. The report reveals that since 2002 more than half (53%) of UK species studied have declined and there is little evidence to suggest that the rate of loss is slowing down.

Mark Eaton, lead author on the report, said:"Never before have we known this much about the state of UK nature and the threats it is facing. Since the 2013, the partnership and many landowners have used this knowledge to underpin some amazing scientific and conservation work. But more is needed to put nature back where it belongs -- we must continue to work to help restore our land and sea for wildlife.

"There is a real opportunity for the UK Government and devolved administrations to build on these efforts and deliver the significant investment and ambitious action needed to bring nature back from the brink.

"Of course, this report wouldn't have been possible without the army of dedicated volunteers who brave all conditions to survey the UK's wildlife. Knowledge is the most essential tool that a conservationist can have, and without their efforts, our knowledge would be significantly poorer."

Derek Crawley, Atlas Office for the Mammal Society, said "New technology now enables volunteers to share information more easily than ever before. Our MammalTracker app is freely available from the App Store, or sightings of mammals can be recorded via our website. We will also be sharing information on how to make the most of volunteer programmes at a special meeting in the autumn.

Source: University of Exeter [September 23, 2016]

The reunification of ancient Egypt achieved by Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II—the first pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom—was followed by a great cultural flowering that lasted nearly 400 years. During the Middle Kingdom (mid-Dynasty 11–Dynasty 13, around 2030–1650 B.C.), artistic, cultural, religious, and political traditions first conceived and instituted during the Old Kingdom were revived and reimagined.

This transformational era will be represented through 230 powerful and compelling masterworks (individual objects and groups of objects) in the major international exhibition Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom, opening October 12 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fashioned with great subtlety and sensitivity, and ranging in size from monumental stone sculptures to delicate examples of jewelry, the works of art are drawn from the preeminent collection of the Metropolitan—which is particularly rich in Middle Kingdom material—and 37 museums and collections in North America and Europe. This is the first comprehensive presentation of Middle Kingdom art and culture and features many objects that have never been shown in the United States.

“The astonishing continuity of ancient Egyptian culture, with certain basic principles lasting for thousands of years, gives the impression of changelessness,” said Adela Oppenheim, Curator of Egyptian Art. “But the works of art in the exhibition will show that ancient Egypt constantly evolved, and was remarkably flexible within a consistent framework. New ideas did not simply replace earlier notions; they were added to what had come before, creating a fascinating society of ever-increasing complexity.”

Arranged thematically and chronologically, the exhibition opens with a forceful, monumental statue of King Mentuhotep II, carved in an intentionally archaic style that suggests a link to the legendary kings of early Egypt (ca. 3300 B.C.).

Profound changes in the concept of kingship are demonstrated through a series of royal statues that span several hundred years. Early Middle Kingdom pharaohs are often depicted with youthful faces and confident expressions. In contrast, the evocative, fleshy faces and deep-set, hooded eyes of later kings present startling images of maturity and humanity.

During the 12th Dynasty, the construction of pyramid complexes resumes, after a lapse of more than a century. The innovation found in these complexes is exemplified by that of Senwosret III (around 1878-1840 B.C.) at Dahshur, site of Metropolitan Museum excavations since 1990. A detailed 1-to-150 scale model made by Ron Street, Supervisor of the Museum’s Three-Dimensional Imaging, Prototyping, and Molding Studio, will show the original form of the complex.

Royal women were always closely connected to the pharaoh, as evidenced by the placement of their burials and chapels near those of the king. Although less is known about Middle Kingdom queens and princesses, indicating altered or perhaps diminished roles during the era, some of the finest ancient Egyptian jewelry was produced for elite women of the time. Inscriptions and symbolic motifs endowed the jewelry with spiritual power and related to the role these women played in supporting the kings as guarantors of divine order on earth.

During the Middle Kingdom, members of all levels of Egyptian society commissioned a wider variety of works of art and constructed commemorative chapels at significant holy sites; statues of squatting figures rendered in a cubic, block-like form and statues in an attitude of prayer originate during this period.

Thematic groupings of artifacts from domestic settings, tombs, and temples reveal the breadth of artistic expression, evolution of styles, and the transformation of many aspects of Egyptian culture and religion. First attested in the Middle Kingdom are a variety of intriguing, protective magical objects, notably some that were believed to shield pregnant women and young children. Among them are curved hippopotamus tusks that are unique to this era and are covered with images of beneficial supernatural beings.

The family was always a central element of ancient Egyptian culture, but in the Middle Kingdom larger groups of relatives are depicted together on stelae and sculptures. One remarkable stela on view features depictions of 30 individuals. Others include poignant groupings of mothers and their young children.

Significant changes in afterlife beliefs during the Middle Kingdom are manifest in new kinds of objects present in burials. Intricately and finely rendered miniatures of painted wood (so-called models) from the tomb of the chancellor Meketre (ca. 1980–75 B.C.), excavated by the Metropolitan in 1920, depict food production, manufacturing, and journeys by boat; they are displayed in several sections of the exhibition.

During the Middle Kingdom, the god Osiris gained importance as a funerary deity and, from then on, the dead at all levels of society became manifestations of the god. Because Osiris functioned as the ruler of the underworld, certain symbols and regalia that had been the sole prerogative of the reigning king were appropriated for non-royal use: mummies sometimes had a uraeus on the brow (a stylized cobra usually seen on a pharaoh’s crown), and a flail (a standard attribute of the pharaoh) could be placed inside a coffin. Canopic jars, which held the organs of the deceased, became much more ornate in the Middle Kingdom. With lids in the form of human heads, the vessels are small sculptures in their own right.

As devotion to Osiris increased, his cult center at Abydos (north of Luxor) gained prominence. Annual processions were held between his temple and his supposed burial place in the desert to the west. To participate eternally in these elaborate rites and ensure their afterlife, individuals at many levels of society erected memorial chapels—some with outstanding artworks—for themselves and their families along the procession route.

Deity temples—largely built of fragile mud brick in the Old Kingdom—were transformed dramatically during the Middle Kingdom, when pharaohs commissioned decorated stone temples throughout the country. Decoration included spectacular sculpture and reliefs depicting the pharaoh presenting offerings to and revering deities, as well as statues of the gods.

Colossal statues were first made during the Old Kingdom, but they became much more common during the Middle Kingdom. Portions of colossal statues will be displayed throughout the exhibition, with the largest in scale being presented at its conclusion: a monumental head of pharaoh Amenemhat III that was transported to the Delta city of Bubastis and reused by later kings. The same happened to the colossal statue of a mid-Dynasty 12 king, on loan from the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin, and on view in the Museum’s Great Hall. Pharaohs after the Middle Kingdom reused the monuments of their predecessors, particularly those of the Middle Kingdom, both for economy and to link themselves to the past.

General knowledge of the history of the Middle Kingdom—the achievements of its artists, its religious beliefs, burial customs, and relationships with other lands—stems in large part from Metropolitan Museum sponsorship of numerous excavations at Middle Kingdom sites including Deir el-Bahri (1920–31), Lisht (1906–34, 1984–91), and Dahshur (1990–present).

Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art [September 26, 2015]

Scientists at the international conservation charity Zoological Society of London (ZSL) have used historical records from China stretching back over 400 years to track changes in the distribution of gibbons, which today are some of China's most threatened species. This is one of the first instances of using ancient historical records to reconstruct the course of extinctions across several centuries.

Using local government records dating from as early as 1600 AD, across the Ming and Qing Dynasties and through China's Republican and Communist periods, researchers were able to infer the former presence of gibbons in different Chinese prefectures, and track their gradual disappearance through time.

Researchers found that only a few hundred years ago, gibbons were distributed across almost half of China. However, gibbon populations collapsed during the twentieth century, and today they survive in only a few remote forest patches in the far southwest of the country. One of China's gibbon species, the Hainan gibbon (Nomascus hainanus), is now probably the rarest mammal species in the world, with a total population of only 26-28 individuals.

Dr Samuel Turvey, lead author and Senior Research Fellow at ZSL, said: "Gibbons were of great cultural importance in pre-modern China, because they were thought to be able to channel mystical "qi energy" and live for several hundred years, and their haunting dawn calls came to symbolise the melancholy of travellers in classical poetry. Their former presence over large regions of China was widely recorded in local documents, and reconstructing when -- and why -- different gibbon populations disappeared across much of China can teach us important lessons that can help save the country's last few gibbons.

"China has a fantastically rich historical record, which includes a wealth of environmental data that has rarely been used for conservation management. Because of the current environmental crisis facing eastern and southeast Asia, we have to explore new ways to better understand the kinds of factors that can make species more or less vulnerable to extinction."

The study appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Source: Zoological Society of London [August 05, 2015]

To fence or not to fence? That is the question facing conservationists concerned with barriers that keep wildlife in and people out.

According to a new study by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and other groups, appearing in April 20 edition of the Journal of Applied Ecology, new policies must be developed before fences are erected -- particularly in dryland ecosystems where mobility is essential for both humans and wildlife.

Some nations are considering fences as a means to protect remnant wildlife populations. For example, Uganda intends to fence all of its national parks to stem human-wildlife conflicts, while Rwanda recently erected a 120 km fence around Akagera National Park.

But the study's authors caution that evidence is limited showing that fences are effective management tools, particularly in drylands.

"Large-scale fencing can disrupt migration pathways and reduce access to key areas within drylands, such as seasonal foraging areas," said lead author Sarah Durant of ZSL. "This can lead to severe reductions in migratory wildlife populations and may prompt wider impacts on non-migratory species."

The study says that policies are needed to evaluate whether fences should be erected and should be evaluated based on wildlife movement and distribution, climate change predictions, costs and benefits to local people, and other factors.

Said co-author James Deutsch of WCS: "Fencing can initially appear to be an easy conservation solution. Yet, unless fencing strategies have local community support and financing for maintenance, there is a danger that they may generate more problems than they solve."

The authors suggest that The United Nations Conventions on Migratory Species (CMS) and to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) are appropriate international agreements for leading to the development of policies and guidelines on fencing drylands.

In response, the Scientific Council of CMS has proposed to form a Working Group on fencing problems and policies in dryland ecosystems.

Said co-author Roseline Beudels-Jamar from the CMS Scientific Council: "CMS is concerned about the impact of human-wildlife conflict on both wildlife and on vulnerable livelihoods of marginalised people, and would like to better understand the impacts of fencing, or alternative methods, if used to mitigate such conflicts."

Source: Wildlife Conservation Society [May 06, 2015]

The transition from hunter-gatherer to sedentary farming 10,000 years ago occurred in multiple neighbouring but genetically distinct populations according to research by an international team including UCL.

“It had been widely assumed that these first farmers were from a single, genetically homogeneous population. However, we’ve found that there were deep genetic differences in these early farming populations, indicating very distinct ancestries,” said corresponding author Dr Garrett Hellenthal, UCL Genetics.

The study, published today in >Science and funded by Wellcome and Royal Society, examined ancient DNA from some of the world’s first farmers from the Zagros region of Iran and found it to be very different from the genomes of early farmers from the Aegean and Europe. The team identified similarities between the Neolithic farmer’s DNA and that of living people from southern Asia, including from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iranian Zoroastrians in particular.

“We know that farming technologies, including various domestic plants and animals, arose across the Fertile Crescent, with no particular centre” added co-author Professor Mark Thomas, UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment.

“But to find that this region was made up of highly genetically distinct farming populations was something of a surprise. We estimated that they separated some 46 to 77,000 years ago, so they would almost certainly have looked different, and spoken different languages. It seems like we should be talking of a federal origin of farming.”

The switch from mobile hunting and gathering to sedentary farming first occurred around 10,000 years ago in south-western Asia and was one of the most important behavioural transitions since humans first evolved in Africa some 200,000 years ago. It led to profound changes in society, including greater population densities, new diseases, poorer health, social inequality, urban living, and ultimately, the rise of ancient civilizations.

Animals and plants were first domesticated across a region stretching north from modern-day Israel, Palestine and Lebanon to Syria and eastern Turkey, then east into, northern Iraq and north-western Iran, and south into Mesopotamia; a region known as the Fertile Crescent.

“Such was the impact of farming on our species that archaeologists have debated for more than 100 years how it originated and how it was spread into neighbouring regions such as Europe, North Africa and southern Asia,” said co-author Professor Stephen Shennan, UCL Institute of Archaeology.

“We’ve shown for the first time that different populations in different parts of the Fertile Crescent were coming up with similar solutions to finding a successful way of life in the new conditions created by the end of the last Ice Age.”

By looking at how ancient and living people share long sections of DNA, the team showed that early farming populations were highly genetically structured, and that some of that structure was preserved as farming, and farmers, spread into neighbouring regions; Europe to the west and southern Asia to the east.

“Early farmers from across Europe, and to some extent modern-day Europeans, can trace their DNA to early farmers living in the Aegean, whereas people living in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and India share considerably more long chunks of DNA with early farmers in Iran. This genetic legacy of early farmers persists, although of course our genetic make-up subsequently has been reshaped by many millennia of other population movements and intermixing of various groups,” concluded Dr Hellenthal.

Source: University College London [July 14, 2016]

Some of the oldest marine animals on the planet, including armoured worm-like forms and giant, lobster like sea creatures, survived millions of years longer than previously thought, according to a spectacularly preserved fossil formation from southeastern Morocco.

The Lower Fezouata formation has been revealing exciting discoveries about life in the Ordovician -- around 485 -- 444 million years ago -- since its discovery just five years ago.

'The Fezouata is extraordinarily significant' says Professor Derek Briggs of Yale University, co-author of a study published today in the Journal of the Geological Society. 'Animals typical of the Cambrian are still present in rocks 20 million years younger, which means there must be a cryptic record in between, which is not preserved.'

Over 160 genera have already been documented from the Fezouata, with much more expected to be found. They include animals which would have looked perfectly at home during the Cambrian: armoured lobopodians -- worm like creatures with spines on their backs and short, stubby legs, and anomalocaridids -- huge segmented animals with remarkable feeding limbs, which are some of the largest marine creatures of the time.

As well as demonstrating the longevity of fauna thought to have been extinct millions of years previously, the Fezouata proves that other creatures evolved far earlier than previously thought.

'Horseshoe crabs, for example, turn out to be at least 20 million years older than we thought. The formation demonstrates how important exceptionally preserved fossils are to our understanding of major evolutionary events in deep time' says Peter Van Roy, also of Yale, who first recognised the scientific importance of the Fezouata fauna and is lead author of the study, part of a project funded by the National Science Foundation.

The spectacular preservation, which includes detailed soft parts and organisms over 2 metres in length, is thanks to the fine grained, muddy sediments in which the organisms were preserved.

'These are special rocks' says Professor Briggs. 'Some of the organisms are enormous -- several metres in length. With such exceptional preservation, in a fully marine exposure, we can develop a reasonably full picture of what marine life looked like in the Ordovician.'

The discoveries suggest the 'Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event' -- an explosion in diversity throughout the earlier part of the Ordovician period -- may have been a continuation of the Cambrian explosion.

'There is much more to learn from the Fezouata' says Professor Briggs. 'Why do we not see more assemblages like this in the Ordovician? What ecological changes happened at the Cambro-Ordovician interval? Are the Cambrian Explosion and the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event separate, or phases of the same event?'

Source: Geological Society of London [July 07, 2015]

Species across the world are rapidly going extinct due to human activities, but humans are also causing rapid evolution and the emergence of new species. A new study published today summarises the causes of humanmade speciation, and discusses why newly evolved species cannot simply replace extinct wild species. The study was led by the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen.

A growing number of examples show that humans not only contribute to the extinction of species but also drive evolution, and in some cases the emergence of entirely new species. This can take place through mechanisms such as accidental introductions, domestication of animals and crops, unnatural selection due to hunting, or the emergence of novel ecosystems such as the urban environment.

Although tempting to conclude that human activities thus benefit as well as deplete global biodiversity, the authors stress that extinct wild species cannot simply be replaced with newly evolved ones, and that nature conservation remains just as urgent.

"The prospect of 'artificially' gaining novel species through human activities is unlikely to elicit the feeling that it can offset losses of 'natural' species. Indeed, many people might find the prospect of an artificially biodiverse world just as daunting as an artificially impoverished one" says lead author and Postdoc Joseph Bull from the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen.

The study which was carried out in collaboration with the University of Queensland was published in >Proceedings of Royal Society B. It highlights numerous examples of how human activities influence species' evolution. For instance: as the common house mosquito adapted to the environment of the underground railway system in London, it established a subterranean population. Now named the 'London Underground mosquito', it can no longer interbreed with its above ground counterpart and is effectively thought to be a new species.

"We also see examples of domestication resulting in new species. According to a recent study, at least six of the world's 40 most important agricultural crops are considered entirely new" explains Joseph Bull.

Furthermore, unnatural selection due to hunting can lead to new traits emerging in animals, which can eventually lead to new species, and deliberate or accidental relocation of species can lead to hybridization with other species. Due to the latter, more new plant species in Europe have appeared than are documented to have gone extinct over the last three centuries.

Although it is not possible to quantify exactly how many speciation events have been caused through human activities, the impact is potentially considerable, the study states.

"In this context, 'number of species' becomes a deeply unsatisfactory measure of conservation trends, because it does not reflect many important aspects of biodiversity. Achieving a neutral net outcome for species numbers cannot be considered acceptable if weighing wild fauna against relatively homogenous domesticated species. However, considering speciation alongside extinction may well prove important in developing a better understanding of our impact upon global biodiversity. We call for a discussion about what we, as a society, actually want to conserve about nature" says Associate Professor Martine Maron from the University of Queensland.

Researchers do agree that current extinction rates may soon lead to a 6th period of mass extinction. Since the last Ice Age, 11.500 years ago, it is estimated that 255 mammals and 523 bird species has gone extinct, often due to human activity. In the same period, humans have relocated almost 900 known species and domesticated more than 470 animals and close to 270 plant species.

Source: Faculty of Science - University of Copenhagen [June 28, 2016]

The horticulturist who came up with the concept of ‘evolution by natural selection’ 27 years before Charles Darwin did should be more widely acknowledged for his contribution, states a new paper by a King’s College London geneticist.

The paper, published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, argues that Patrick Matthew deserves to be considered alongside Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace as one of the three originators of the idea of large-scale evolution by natural selection.

Furthermore, Matthew’s version of evolution by natural section captures a valuable aspect of the theory that isn't so clear in Darwin's version – namely, that natural selection is a deductive certainty more akin to a ‘law’ than a hypothesis or theory to be tested.

Patrick Matthew (1790-1874) was a Scottish landowner with a keen interest in politics and agronomy.  He established extensive orchards of apples and pears on his estate at Gourdie Hill, Perthshire, and became adept in horticulture, silviculture and agriculture.

Whilst Darwin and Wallace’s 1858 paper to the Linnean Society, On the Origin of Species, secured their place in the history books, Matthews had set out similar ideas 27 years earlier in his book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture. The book, published in 1831, addressed best practices for the cultivation of trees for shipbuilding, but also expanded on his concept of natural selection.

“There is a law universal in nature, tending to render every reproductive being the best possibly suited to its condition that its kind, or that organized matter, is susceptible of, which appears intended to model the physical and mental or instinctive powers, to their highest perfection, and to continue them so. This law sustains the lion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the fox in his wiles.”  (Matthew, 1831: 364)

In 1860, Matthew wrote to point out the parallels with his prior work, several months after the publication of On the origin of species.  Darwin publically wrote in 1860 “I freely acknowledge that Mr. Matthew has anticipated by many years the explanation which I have offered of the origin of species”, while Wallace wrote publically in 1879 of “how fully and clearly Mr. Matthew apprehended the theory of natural selection, as well as the existence of more obscure laws of evolution, many years in advance of Mr. Darwin and myself”, and further declared Matthew to be “one of the most original thinkers of the first half of the 19th century”.  However, both asserted their formulations were independent of Matthew’s.

Even if Matthew did not influence Darwin and Wallace, his writings provide a valuable third point of reference on the notion of macroevolution by natural selection, argues the paper’s author, Dr Michael Weale. Dr Weale has created a public website to act as an online repository of the writings by Patrick Matthew, including some of his lesser-known work.

Dr Michael Weale, from the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics at King’s College London, said: ‘Whilst Darwin and Wallace both deserve recognition for their work, Matthew, the outsider who deduced his idea as part of a grand scheme of a purposeful universe, is the overlooked third man in the story. Matthew’s story is an object lesson in the perils of low-impact publishing. Despite its brevity, and to some extent because of it, Matthew’s work merits our renewed attention.’

Source: King's College London [April 20, 2015]

Habitat degradation poses a greater risk to the survival of turtles and tortoises than rising global temperatures, according to new research.

More than 60 per cent of the group are listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered, because they are being traded, collected for food and medicine and their habitats are being degraded. Understanding the additional impact of global warming and changes in rainfall patterns on their diversity and distributions is therefore paramount to their conservation.

The team of researchers set out to test if long-term climate change poses a threat or opportunity to turtles and tortoises and how they might respond to increased global temperatures.

As turtles live such long lives, it is impossible to conduct experiments to test for the impact of warming over several generations. The group used a novel combination of state of the art climate models and the deep time fossil record of turtles during warmer times.

The Late Cretaceous fossil record (66-72 million years ago), dating from the time just before the demise of the dinosaurs, was investigated as a natural experiment to quantify differences between the ecology of living turtles and tortoises and those living in an earlier, warmer greenhouse world.

The results of this study, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) with support from The Royal Society, show that during periods with much warmer climates, turtles and tortoises were able to stand the heat in the warmer tropics -- as long as there was enough water to support those species living in rivers and lakes.

Amy Waterson, PhD student and lead author from the University of Bristol, said: "Some groups of turtles have maintained similar niches over millions of years. They have withstood warmer climates in the past and their ability to adapt to the rate of environmental change happening today will be an important factor in their resilience to future climate change."

Turtles and tortoises are highly sensitive to changes in temperature and rainfall, hence concerns about the impact of climate change on their distribution. Alongside overexploitation and habitat loss, climate change is a significant threat to their conservation status with growth, abundance and geographical ranges all predicted to decline under future climate change projections.

In many species, temperature determines if the egg will develop into a male or female showing a direct impact of warming. As the group lives in ponds, rivers, on land and in the sea climate change can impact them via changes in temperature, rainfall, and major ocean currents.

However, Professor Daniela Schmidt, an expert in palaeobiology from the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, explained that the bigger question for the conservation of the group is not how warm it will be in the near future but how fast that warming will be: "The largest difference between the warm Cretaceous and today is that this earlier warming happened over tens of thousands of years, giving these animals a chance to adapt to these conditions, not in a century."

Professor Paul Barrett from the Natural History Museum, London added: "Other conservation threats, such as humanmade habitat degradation and barriers to movement, might be as important in determining the fates of turtles in a warming world as the warming itself."

The study is published in the >Royal Society of Proceedings B.

Source: University of Bristol [September 22, 2016]

A new UCL study examines how the baculum (penis bone) evolved in mammals and explores its possible function in primates and carnivores—groups where many species have a baculum, but some do not.

The baculum has been described as "the most diverse of all bones", varying dramatically in length, width and shape in the male mammals where it is present.

The research, published today in the Royal Society journal >Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that the ancestral mammal, like humans, did not have a baculum - but both ancestral primates and carnivores did. The work uncovers that the baculum first evolved in mammals between 145 and 95 million years ago.

The study found that prolonged intromission - defined as penetration for longer than 3 minutes - was correlated with baculum presence across the course of primate evolution. Prolonged intromission was also found to predict a longer baculum in primates and carnivores.

High levels of postcopulatory sexual competition between males also predicted longer bacula in primates.

First author, Matilda Brindle (UCL Anthropology), said: "Our findings suggest that the baculum plays an important role in supporting male reproductive strategies in species where males face high levels of postcopulatory sexual competition. Prolonging intromission helps a male to guard a female from mating with any competitors, increasing his chances of passing on his genetic material."

The findings of the study may also provide clues as to why humans do not have a baculum.

When any cultural aspects of sex are removed and a male's aim is solely to ejaculate, humans have a short intromission duration.

In species where mating occurs between multiple males and multiple females (known as polygamy), there is acute competition between males to fertilise a female. However, human mating systems are not like this. Instead humans tend to be monogamous or, more rarely, polygynous (where one male mates with multiple females). In these circumstances, only one male has access to a female and postcopulatory competition between males is absent or very low level.

Brindle added: "Interestingly, humans have neither prolonged intromission durations, nor high levels of postcopulatory sexual competition. Given the results of our study, this may help to unravel the mystery of why the baculum was lost in the human lineage."

Chimpanzees and bonobos, humans' closest relatives, have very small bacula (between about 6-8mm) and short intromission durations (around 7 seconds for chimpanzees and 15 seconds for bonobos). However, they are characterised by polygamous mating systems, so they experience high levels of postcopulatory competition between males. The researchers suggest that this may be why these species have retained a baculum - albeit a small one.

Co-author, Dr Kit Opie (UCL Anthropology), commented: "After the human lineage split from chimpanzees and bonobos and our mating system shifted towards monogamy, probably after 2mya, the evolutionary pressures retaining the baculum likely disappeared. This may have been the final nail in the coffin for the already diminished baculum, which was then lost in ancestral humans."

Source: University College London [December 14, 2016]

A new study says that more than 17,000 marine species worldwide remain largely unprotected, with the U.S. among the bottom in supporting formal marine protected areas (MPAs) that could safeguard marine biodiversity.

The study, which is the first comprehensive assessment of protected areas coverage on marine life, appears in the international journal Scientific Reports. Authors include scientists from University of Queensland, the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED), UC Santa Barbara, the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Imperial College London and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The authors looked at the ranges of some 17,348 species of marine life, including whales, sharks rays and fish, and found that 97.4 percent have less than 10 percent of their range represented in marine protected areas. Nations with the largest number of "gap species" or species whose range lie entirely outside of protected areas include the U.S., Canada, and Brazil.

Despite these dismal results, the authors say the study underscores opportunities to achieve goals set by the Convention on Biological Diversity to protect 10 percent of marine biodiversity by 2020. For example, the majority of species that were considered very poorly represented (less than two percent of their range found in marine protected areas) are found in exclusive economic zones. This suggests an important role for particular nations to better protect biodiversity.

"The process of establishing MPAs is not trivial as they impact livelihoods. It is essential that new MPAs protect biodiversity whilst minimizing negative social and economic impacts. The results of this study offer strategic guidance on where MPAs could be placed to better protect marine biodiversity." said the study's lead author Dr Carissa Klein of the University of Queensland and CEED.

The authors say that it is imperative that new MPAs are systematically identified and take into account what has already been protected in other places, in addition to socioeconomic costs of implementation, feasibility of success, other aspects driving biodiversity.

"The increase in the number MPAs in recent years is encouraging, but most of this increase has come from a few very large MPAs," said Dr. Ben Halpern of UC Santa Barbara and NCEAS. "Those very large MPAs provide important value, but they can be misleading in thinking that biodiversity is being well protected because of them. Species all around the planet need protection, not just those in some locations. Our results point out where the protection gaps exist."

Said co-author Dr. James Watson of WCS and the University of Queensland: "As most marine biodiversity remains extremely poorly represented, the task of implementing an effective network of MPAs is urgent. Achieving this goal is imperative for not just for nature but for humanity, as millions of people depend on marine biodiversity for important and valuable services."

Source: Wildlife Conservation Society [December 03, 2015]

The world's rarest ape has an increased chance of survival after a team led by international conservation charity the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) found a new family group of Hainan gibbons (Nomascus hainanus).

Until last month, it was thought that there were just 25 Hainan gibbons living in three social groups on an island off the Chinese mainland.

The discovery of a new fourth group, a mating pair with a young baby, sighted within Bawangling National Nature Reserve, Hainan Province, increases the known population by almost 12%.

The discovery of this fourth breeding group increases reproductive potential of the population, which could be vital for the long term survival of the Critically Endangered gibbons.

ZSL researcher Dr Jessica Bryant, who led the expedition that made the discovery, said: "Finding a new Hainan gibbon group is a fantastic boost for the population. We had hoped to locate at least one or two solitary gibbons, but discovering a whole new family group complete with a baby is beyond our wildest dreams."

The new social group brings the estimate of the total population of Hainan gibbons to around 28 individuals.

The ZSL-led project team, including international gibbon experts along with staff from Bawangling National Nature Reserve Management Office, set out to try and find any surviving lone gibbons in the reserve to gain a greater understanding of the total number of Hainan gibbons that remain.

Gibbons are typically located by the sound of their daily song. Due to the low population density of the Hainan gibbon, they are less likely to sing as there are few other gibbons to advertise their territory to, making detection of solitary individuals or groups extremely challenging. By utilising new acoustic techniques that prompt gibbons to investigate and call, the team were able to locate this new group.

Dr Bryant added: "The success of our discovery is really encouraging. We now want to learn more about this new group, and also hope to extend the investigation to perhaps even find additional solitary gibbons or other groups. Today is a great day for Hainan gibbon conservation."

Source: Zoological Society of London [July 13, 2015]