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Academics in Afghanistan were thriving before the shock takeover by the Taliban this year, which saw many researchers leave the country and universities closed
Humans
24 December 2021 More
Analysis of ancient DNA reveals a mass migration of people from what is now France to England and Wales between 1000 and 875 BC
Humans
22 December 2021
By Carissa Wong
Illustration of a Celtic hill fort in the Iron AgeHeritage Image Partnership Ltd /Alamy
The largest analysis of ancient DNA to date has revealed a mass migration of people from what is now France into England and Wales during the late Bronze Age, which may have spread Celtic languages to Britain.
Two large migrations of people into Britain were previously known, the first taking place around 6000 years ago. The ancestry of these people came mostly from a group known to archaeogeneticists as Early European Farmers, with around 20 per cent from another group called Western European Hunter-Gatherers. This migration led to the replacement of most of the existing local hunter-gatherer ancestry.
Around 4500 years ago, at the start of the Bronze Age, there was a second migration that consisted of descendents of livestock farmers from the Pontic-Caspian steppe – grassland that spans from present-day Bulgaria to Kazakhstan. Ancestry from this group eventually formed at least 90 per cent of the genetic make-up in Scotland, England and Wales.Advertisement
People living in England and Wales today have more ancestry from Early European Farmers than people in the early Bronze Age did, suggesting a third migration from Europe may have occurred more recently.
Ian Armit at the University of York in the UK and his colleagues sequenced the genomes of nearly 800 individuals from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age whose remains were found at archaeological sites in Britain and in western and central Europe. They looked at the proportion of Early European Farmer ancestry in these ancient people over time.
The team found evidence of a third mass migration into Britain from France that took place between 1000 BC and 875 BC, during which Early European Farmer ancestry increased from around 30 per cent to roughly 36 per cent on average in southern Britain by the late Bronze Age. In the Iron Age, this stabilised at nearly half of the ancestry in populations of England and Wales.
“We’ve always known this period of the middle and late Bronze Age was a period of tremendous connectivity between Britain and central and western Europe,” says Armit.
“Prior to this study, we would have thought of the movement in terms of individuals and small groups, traders and [people looking for metal]. But the results show society was far more mobile than we thought – large sectors of society were on the move. Societies were very interconnected across the English Channel in a manner we hadn’t really appreciated before,” he says.
The findings help shed light on a debate about when Celtic languages were first spoken in Britain. “The most established theory, based on the analysis of ancient object styles, is that Celtic languages came in during the Iron Age with Celtic speakers from continental Europe,” says Armit.
But the new evidence supports a competing idea, based on linguistic studies, that Celtic languages expanded into Britain earlier, in the middle to late Bronze Age. However, we can’t tell from someone’s DNA what language they spoke, says Armit.
Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04287-4
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We used to think that European wine grapes were cultivated locally, independently of grape domestication in western Asia, but grape genetics suggests otherwise
Humans
21 December 2021
By Carissa Wong
Red grapes ready to be harvested in a vineyardalika/Shutterstock
Grapes used to make common European wines may have originated from grapevines that were first domesticated in the South Caucasus region of western Asia. As these domesticated grapes dispersed westwards during the Greek and Roman times, they interbred with local European wild populations, which helped the wine grapes adapt to different European climates.
The origins of grapes (Vitis vinifera) that are used in Europe and elsewhere to produce wines such as Merlot, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir have long been debated.
It has been proposed that European wine grapes arose from the cultivation of wild European populations (V. vinifera subspecies sylvestris), independently of the original domestication of grapes in western Asia around 7000 years ago.Advertisement
But a genetic analysis carried out by Gabriele Di Gaspero at the Institute of Applied Genomics in Udine, Italy, and his colleagues suggests that European wine grapes actually originated from domesticated grapes (V. vinifera subspecies sativa) that were initially grown for consumption as fresh fruit in western Asia.
The team sequenced the genomes of 204 wild and cultivated grape varieties – to cover the range of genetic diversity in cultivated grapes – and compared how similar their genetic sequences were to one another.
This revealed that as western Asian table grapes spread westwards across the Mediterranean and further inland into Europe, they interbred with wild European grape populations that grew nearby.
“The wild plants grew close to vineyards and interbred – this was unintentional. But the results of the breeding created adaptive traits that were likely selected by humans intentionally,” says Di Gaspero. “By bringing together this genetic evidence and existing historical evidence, the introductions in southern Europe and inland likely occurred in Greek and Roman times, although we don’t know more specific dates.”
By modelling how the ancestry of the grapes in different regions of Europe related to aspects of the local climate such as temperature and precipitation, the team discovered that European wild grapes probably contributed traits that enabled the ancestral grape vines to adapt to different regions as they moved westwards from Asia.
The team also found evidence of the effect that domestication had on grape genetics.
In wild grape varieties, a larger seed makes a larger berry because grape seeds produce a growth hormone called ethylene. But for human consumption, a larger berry-to-seed ratio is desirable. The team found that an enzyme not found in the berries of wild varieties was present in the berries of domesticated varieties. In other plants, the enzyme is known to help berries grow in response to ethylene, which suggests it does the same in grapes.
Understanding which genes encode favourable traits in grapes can allow us grow better grape crops, says Di Gaspero.
Journal reference: Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27487-y
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The size of a child’s hippocampus can be limited by stress, and US state welfare schemes that give families $500 a month or more are linked to a reduction in this association
Humans
20 December 2021
By Jason Arunn Murugesu
Illustration of the hippocampus in a child’s brainScience Photo Library / Alamy
Higher payments from US welfare schemes can reduce the impact that living in a low-income household has on the size of a crucial region of a child’s brain.
David Weissman at Harvard University in Massachusetts, and his colleagues analysed images of the brains of more than 11,000 children aged 9 and 10 in the US, looking specifically at the size of each child’s hippocampus.
“The hippocampus is a brain region involved in learning and memory,” says Weissman. Its development is believed to be impaired by excess stress, which can be caused by growing up in poverty, he says.Advertisement
“Prior studies show that kids with small hippocampal volumes are more likely to develop internalising problems [such as anxiety and social withdrawal] and develop depression,” he says.
The children came from 17 states, and while they aren’t wholly representative of the US population they are “pretty close”, according to Weissman. The data set is slightly skewed towards more urban areas because the imaging can only be done in places that have available neuroimaging equipment and related expertise.
Weissman and his team looked at whether a state had expanded Medicaid, a federally subsidised healthcare scheme, in 2017. That year, states had to choose whether to begin covering a portion of the services that were previously fully covered by the federal government. Just over 7500 of the children involved lived in states that expanded Medicaid.
Then the researchers analysed the average amount of welfare benefits people in each state received under various anti-poverty schemes. The higher this total, the more generous they considered the state’s benefits system. “It’s a rough estimate, but it works,” says Weissman.
Combining this with the brain imagery revealed that children in families that received fewer welfare benefits from their state had a smaller hippocampus than average. This link was stronger in states with a high cost of living.
The team found there was a 37 per cent reduction in the association between lower family incomes and a smaller hippocampus in states that gave each family receiving welfare payments on average $500 a month or more, compared with those that gave less than $500 a month.
The link between receiving better welfare payments and a smaller hippocampus was also reduced by 19 per cent in states that had expanded Medicaid compared with those that hadn’t.
Weissman says the results aren’t surprising, but it is still “shocking” to see how major government policy decisions have an actual effect on the brain.
“If your goal is to have a fairer society where this doesn’t happen, then you should be pushing for policies that give more cash benefits to poorer families,” he says.
“I think that this finding is tremendously important,” says Jane Barlow at the University of Oxford. “The research [in this field] now clearly shows social adversity can become biologically embedded during the prenatal period and early years of a child’s life as a result of the way in which they impact the neurological development of the child.”
Reference: PsyArXiv, DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/8nhej
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By Chen Ly
The Faroe Islandsdataichi – Simon Dubreuil/Getty Images
People arrived on the Faroe Islands – a North Atlantic archipelago between Iceland, Norway and the British Isles – earlier than we thought, predating the arrival of Norse Vikings by about 300 years.
The earliest direct evidence of human settlement on the Faroe Islands dates back to the arrival of the Vikings in around AD 800. But charred barley grains and cereal grain pollen on the islands dating back to around AD 500 indirectly hint that farming must have existed on the islands pre-Viking.
Now, William D’Andrea at … More
By Christa Lesté-Lasserre
Researchers Lindell Bromham and Xia Hua analyse data on the Gurindji languageJamie Kidston/ANU
Denser road networks, higher levels of education and even climate change are just a few of the factors that could lead to the loss of more than 20 per cent of the world’s 7000 languages by the end of the century – equivalent to one language vanishing per month.
Based on a new model similar to those used for predicting species loss, a team of biologists, mathematicians and linguists led by Lindell Bromham at Australian National University in Canberra has determined that, without effective conservation, language loss will increase five-fold by 2100.
“This is a frightening statistic,” says Bromham, adding that her team’s estimates are “conservative”.Advertisement
“Every time a language is lost, we lose so much,” she says. “We lose a rich source of cultural information; we lose a unique and beautiful expression of human creativity.”
Current language loss estimates vary considerably, with some predicting that up to 90 per cent of languages might no longer be spoken at the start of the next century.
Bromham, an evolutionary biologist, and her colleagues suspected that by borrowing modelling techniques from studies on biodiversity loss, they might be able to capture a more statistically sound view of language diversity loss.
They analysed 6511 languages that are still spoken or have ceased to be spoken – known as “sleeping” languages. They compared the languages’ endangerment status – based on which generations continue to learn and speak the language – with 51 variables related to the likes of legal recognition of the language, demographics, education policies, environmental features and socioeconomic indicators.
They found that having other languages nearby isn’t a risk factor for language loss. In fact, says Bromham, many communities become multilingual when in proximity to other languages.
On the other hand, their study suggested that being geographically isolated – living in a valley among high mountains on an island, for instance – doesn’t make people more likely to hold on to their language.
Denser road networks were associated with higher levels of language loss on a global scale, says Bromham. That could be attributed to the fact that roads increase the level of commuting between rural areas and larger towns, leading to a greater influence of commerce and centralised government and the languages associated with them.
Higher levels of education were also linked to greater loss of local language across the globe, says Bromham.
“This is a very worrying result,” she says. “But I want to emphasise that we are not saying education is bad or that kids shouldn’t go to school. Rather, we’re saying that we need to make sure bilingualism is supported, so that children get the benefit of education without the cost to their own Indigenous language competency.”
Marybeth Nevins, a linguist and anthropologist at Middlebury College in Vermont who wasn’t involved in the study, finds it “both troubling and understandable that schooling would predict endangerment”.
“Schooling establishes a whole new set of practices designed to orient the student to the historically encroaching institutions,” says Nevins.
While 20th century schools were based on single language learning, modern digital technology allows for multilingualism in government institutions, including schools, she says. “With adequate Indigenous language resources, [schooling] need not lead to endangerment.”
The researchers also detected risk factors on a regional level, says Bromham. For example, larger pasture areas were associated with more language loss in parts of Africa, while in Europe, increased temperature seasonality was linked to greater endangerment, reflecting “language erosion” in parts of Scandinavia. More studies are needed to understand these connections, however, she adds.
Holding onto local languages is critical, Nevins says, as it represents a way to maintain the history and culture of Indigenous people who were “forcibly incorporated into the capitalist world system”.
“Language is a kind of proof of ancestral life, a powerful resource against political erasure, a means of reclamation,” she says. “For all of us, Indigenous languages are indispensable to understanding the nature, diversity and historic spread of human beings on our shared planet.”
Journal reference: Nature Ecology and Evolution, DOI: 10.1038/s41559-021-01604-y
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When Neanderthals lived at a site called Neumark-Nord in Germany, the region had far fewer trees than surrounding areas, suggesting they may have cleared the forest on purpose
Humans
15 December 2021
A lakeside archaeological site at Neumark-Nord in GermanyWil Roebroeks, Leiden University
Neanderthals may have reshaped part of the European landscape 125,000 years ago, clearing trees to create a more open environment in which to live. It is the oldest evidence of a hominin having landscape-level effects.
The indications come from an archaeological site called Neumark-Nord in Germany. About 130,000 years ago, great ice sheets retreated, making Neumark-Nord liveable until the ice advanced again 115,000 years ago. During that 15,000-year warm spell, Neanderthals moved into the area, perhaps attracted by a series of lakes in the region.
Neanderthals lived throughout Europe for hundreds of thousands of years, so it seems likely that they had impacts on the environment, says Katharine MacDonald at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “We knew that they were effective hunters, so they were clearly occupying a niche where they could compete with the other carnivores around quite effectively.”Advertisement
MacDonald and her colleagues compiled data from the warm period on the different plant species preserved at the site, as well as charcoal deposits left by fires. Compared with neighbouring sites where Neanderthals didn’t live, the team found a decrease in the tree cover. While neighbouring areas were densely forested, Neumark-Nord “would have been a lot more light and open, and probably more varied as well”, says MacDonald.
Modern humans have altered landscapes in similar ways, but the evidence is largely limited to the past 50,000 years. “It’s the first case where it’s been shown for Neanderthals,” says MacDonald.
It isn’t clear how this happened. There is a peak in charcoal around when Neanderthals arrived, so “it’s really tempting to imagine that that might have been Neanderthals burning the vegetation”, says MacDonald. But she says the dates can’t be resolved precisely enough, so it could be that a natural wildfire opened up the vegetation and Neanderthals arrived in the aftermath.
We also know that Neanderthals made advanced stone tools and that they used them to chop wood. “But I don’t know that there’s any direct evidence for actually cutting down a tree,” says MacDonald.
Compared with other Neanderthal sites, Neumark-Nord seems to have been settled relatively permanently, perhaps even all year round. Neanderthals aren’t known for doing that, says MacDonald. “They are often seen as being quite mobile, and this is quite an unusual site.”
It may be that the open landscape, coupled with the lakes, attracted a lot of large animals for them to hunt – so they had no need to move, she says.
Journal reference: Science Advances, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abj5567
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The covid-19 pandemic has forced millions to participate in one of the biggest social experiments of our time. Nearly two years in, it’s time to take stock: what happens when workers abandon offices?
Humans
15 December 2021
By Alice Klein
Working from home has led to rises in productivity for someExperience Interiors/iStock
THE covid-19 pandemic has forced millions of us to participate in one of the biggest social experiments of our time: what would happen if office workers largely abandoned their workplaces and began working from home? More than 18 months in, it is time to take stock.
One thing seems clear: more people working remotely has brought some benefits for the environment. With less commuter traffic, wildlife has been able to reclaim urban spaces while people have been tapping away at their home keyboards.
But what about the benefits to people? The major perks of home working include people having more flexibility to mould jobs around their family, exercise and leisure time, being able to wear whatever they like, controlling their own heating and lighting and not having to commute. The lack of commuting may be the biggest bonus, since surveys show that workers typically rate their commute as the worst part of their day, unless they walk or cycle.Advertisement
Many people have also been able to get more done while working remotely, possibly due to fewer distractions. A survey by Boston Consulting Group of 1500 managers at large European companies found that more than half had seen productivity levels rise as their employees shifted to remote work during the pandemic.
“There used to be a lot of resistance to working from home because managers thought employees would just goof off and watch Netflix, but there’s a lot more trust now,” says Sue Williamson at the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia.
However, the experiment hasn’t been all positive. Many people forced to work from home have reported feeling isolated and finding it harder to switch off due to the blurred boundary between work and home life.
“Surveys show that workers typically rate their commute as the worst part of their day”
Many managers have also reported declines in innovation, which is probably because “it’s hard to get those serendipitous conversations between people that spark ideas” when everyone is physically separated, says Anne Bardoel at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.
Then there is “Zoom fatigue”, the drained feeling that often accompanies virtual meetings, even though they tend to be shorter than in-person ones. This may be because people have a stronger sense of being on show while on screen and feel more pressure to present well, says Allison Gabriel at the University of Arizona.
As vaccines help to control covid-19, many organisations are hoping to reap the best of both worlds by letting employees work from home on some days and travel to the office on others. The coming months and years will undoubtedly involve trial and error as companies and employees settle on the optimum mix of office and work-from-home days. But one thing seems certain: now that office workers have been given a chance to really think about how they want their work lives to look, there is no turning back.
“It is this opportunity to reset and rethink how we actually work, and I think that’s a very positive thing,” says Bardoel.
2021 in review
This was a year of tackling great challenges, from the covid-19 pandemic to climate change. But 2021 was also rich in scientific discoveries and major advances.
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