Ossuaries from the Chalcolithic Period, excavated at Peqi'in Cave. Credit: Mariana Salzberger, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Posted on 08/21/2018 2:03:14 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
An international team of researchers from Tel Aviv University, the Israel Antiquities Authority and Harvard University has discovered that waves of migration from Anatolia and the Zagros mountains (today's Turkey and Iran) to the Levant helped develop the Chalcolithic culture that existed in Israel's Upper Galilee region some 6,500 years ago. The study is one of the largest ancient DNA studies ever conducted in Israel and for the first time sheds light on the origins of the Chalcolithic culture in the Levant, approximately 6,000-7,000 years ago... The team unearthed dozens of burials in the natural stalactite cave that is 17 meters long and 5-8 meters wide. The large number of unique ceramic ossuaries and the variety of burial offerings discovered in the cave suggest that it was once used as a mortuary center by the local Chalcolithic people. "The uniqueness of the cave is evident in the number of people buried in it -- more than 600 -- and the variety of ossuaries and jars and the outstanding motifs on them, including geometric and anthropomorphic designs," Dr. Shalem says... The researchers subjected 22 of the skeletons excavated at Peqi'in, dating to the Chalcolithic Period, to a whole genome analysis... "Certain characteristics, such as genetic mutations contributing to blue eye color, were not seen in the DNA test results of earlier Levantine human remains," adds Dr. May... "Fortunately, however, human DNA was preserved in the bones of the buried people in Peqi'in cave, likely due to the cool conditions within the cave and the limestone crust that covered the bones and preserved the DNA," says Prof. Hershkovitz... "We also find that the Peqi'in population experienced abrupt demographic change 6,000 years ago," concludes Harney, who led the statistical analysis...
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
Ossuaries from the Chalcolithic Period, excavated at Peqi'in Cave. Credit: Mariana Salzberger, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Blue eyes!
600 burials in a cave 17 meters x somewhere between 5 and 8 meters? Damn, must be crowded in there.
Well no wonder they got wiped out by the flood. That first one has a transgendered frontal hole.
Sorry.
When you say “sorry”, I don’t think that word means what you think it means. LOL
Wait a minute! Jews are Iranians?
See, that kind of talk just pleases nobody. ;^) The blue eye thing sounds like a Berber trait.
That’s where the idea for the tampon came from.
Could be they were just kinda tossed in on top of previous remains already decomposing; also possible that the bodies were defleshed before interment.
From Mummies? Hey if we put rolled up bandages down here...
I quit watching the movie 'Indianapolis' because one of the doomed sailors made a joke about another sailor and him using Tampons. Only great incompetence would have allowed that word into a 1940's movie.
Hey, you should have put a spoiler alert on that message. /jk
Ancient DNA from Chalcolithic Israel reveals the role of population mixture in cultural transformation
Éadaoin Harney, Hila May, Dina Shalem, Nadin Rohland, Swapan Mallick, Iosif Lazaridis, Rachel Sarig, Kristin Stewardson, Susanne Nordenfelt, Nick Patterson, Israel Hershkovitz & David Reich
Published: 20 August 2018
Nature Communications volume 9, Article number: 3336 (2018)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05649-9
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