Intentional facial disfigurement is documented in archaeological contexts around the world. Here, the authors present the first archaeological evidence for intentional facial mutilation from Anglo-Saxon England—comprising the removal of the nose, upper lip and possible scalping—inflicted upon a young adult female. The injuries are consistent with documented punishments for female offenders. Although such mutilations do not appear in the written record until the tenth century AD, the instance reported here suggests that the practice may have emerged a century earlier. This case is examined in the context of a wider consideration of the motivations and significance of facial disfigurement in past societies.
Widely distributed taxa provide an opportunity to compare biogeographic responses to climatic fluctuations on multiple continents and to investigate speciation. We conducted the most geographically and genomically comprehensive study to date of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), the world's most widely distributed wild terrestrial carnivore. Analyses of 697 bp of mitochondrial sequence in ~1000 individuals suggested an ancient Middle Eastern origin for all extant red foxes and a 400 kya (SD = 139 kya) origin of the primary North American (Nearctic) clade. Demographic analyses indicated a major expansion in Eurasia during the last glaciation (~50 kya), coinciding with a previously described secondary transfer of a single matriline (Holarctic) to North America. In contrast, North American matrilines (including the transferred portion of Holarctic clade) exhibited no signatures of expansion until the end of the Pleistocene (~12 kya). Analyses of 11 autosomal loci from a subset of foxes supported the colonization time frame suggested by mtDNA (and the fossil record) but, in contrast, reflected no detectable secondary transfer, resulting in the most fundamental genomic division of red foxes at the Bering Strait. Endemic continental Y-chromosome clades further supported this pattern. Thus, intercontinental genomic exchange was overall very limited, consistent with long-term reproductive isolation since the initial colonization of North America. Based on continental divergence times in other carnivoran species pairs, our findings support a model of peripatric speciation and are consistent with the previous classification of the North American red fox as a distinct species, V. fulva.
Cattle, sheep and goat were domesticated in the Near-East during the 9th millennium BC. From there, sheep and goat, which had no wild ancestors in Europe, were introduced to this continent at the beginning of the 7th millennium B.C. and diffused following two main flows: a southern route along the northern coastline of the Mediterranean, and a northern route across central Europe following the Danubian corridor. Possible scenarios of migration have been complicated to investigate regarding cattle, as the species had a possible wild ancestor in Europe: the local aurochs, whose disappearance only occurred at the end of the 17th century A.D. and whose remains are hardly distinguishable from those of the early domestic forms on the basis of classical osteometry. A tight cooperation between Archaeozoology and Genetics has provided, in the frame of several publicly funded projects (among which the OMLL scheme), substantial new data allowing refinement of historical scenarios to a degree never achieved thus far. We were able to demonstrate that local aurochs did not contribute, or contributed to a very limited extent, to the constitution of European domestic cattle herds, whose origin can be clearly traced back to the Near East. Thus, from this point of view, domestic cattle biogeographical history is very similar to sheep and goat, and their appearance in Europe probably owes more to farming pioneers than to local hunter-gatherers. Analyses of goat aDNA revealed the preservation of an important genetic diversity very far from the diffusion centre. This is suggestive of the persistence of gene flow between domestic herds across the dispersion area along the different diffusion routes, which prevented the occurrence of severe bottleneck effects. This diversity also indicates that the existence of contacts between farming groups encompassed very large areas. It is very interesting to note that recent works published on domestication and diffusion of pig in Neolithic Europe have proposed very different scenarios. This highlights the specificity of domestic bovids as tracers of human contacts, exchanges and displacements during the Neolithicisation of Europe.
Based on 104 base pairs of the mitochondrial 12S ribosomal RNA gene, Sykes et al . [[1][1]] identified two Himalayan samples of hair, from Ladakh (India) and Bhutan, respectively, as belonging to the species Ursus maritimus (polar bear). The authors claim that these samples have the closest genetic
We estimated the genetic relationships between the endangered German Pustertaler–Sprinzen cattle breed and the Pinzgauer, Vosges and Simmental breeds – decided upon after consultation of the available historical literature. Within‐breed diversity of the four breeds was also assessed. Twenty microsatellite markers were amplified in 27–50 unrelated individuals from populations of each breed. Within‐breed variation was estimated from average heterozygosity values and mean number of alleles. Breed relationships were evaluated by genetic distance and a neighbour‐joining tree was calculated from these estimates. Bootstrap resampling of loci tested the robustness of the tree topology obtained. A tree was also constructed from distance matrices using individual animals as operational taxonomic units. From both the average heterozygosity values and mean number of alleles calculated, the Pustertaler breed appears to be no more genetically impoverished than the other breeds analysed. The breed tree showed an 85% support for the Pustertaler–Pinzgauer grouping, and this result is echoed in the genetic distance values and allele‐sharing individual tree.
Summary Eight Bos taurus cattle breeds from the Near East region were screened with a Bos indicus (zebu)‐diagnostic Y‐specific microsatellite ( INRA124 ) to estimate the proportion of zebu Y chromosomes in each population. This value was compared with previously published values for zebu introgression for both the mitochondrial and autosomal gene pools of the same breeds. All breeds revealed considerable levels of introgression from B. indicus cattle when the autosomal data were taken into consideration; this was particularly apparent in cattle populations from Iraq in the east, and declined in the populations further west towards Anatolia. This non‐random pattern of introgression and admixture is suggestive of the introduction of zebu cattle from the region corresponding to present‐day Iran and northern Pakistan. In addition, the maternal and paternal markers demonstrate that the movement of cattle into and within the Near East was complex.
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