Posted on 11/16/2024 7:51:43 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The emergence of agriculture during the Neolithization brought about one of the most profound lifestyle changes in the history of modern humans. The shift in subsistence strategy from hunting, fishing and gathering to farming paved the way for a marked increase in population density and the establishment of larger and more permanent settlements. However, the flourishing economy of the Neolithic came to a sudden halt in many regions of Northern Europe around 5300–4900 calibrated years before present (cal. bp), in which a marked reduction in the number of human remains radiocarbon-dated to this period suggests a population decline. Coined the Neolithic decline, this demographic bust coincides with the cessation of megalith building in the area and has been suggested to be one of the factors facilitating the Corded Ware expansion into Europe (4800–4400 cal. bp). Although several scenarios have been put forward, no single driving factor has hitherto been linked to this decline and this enigma is still heavily debated in the literature. Nevertheless, recent findings demonstrating that an ancestral form of Yersinia pestis was present in Sweden at this time could potentially solve this debate.
Yersinia pestis, the infectious agent of plague, split from its most recent ancestor Yersinia pseudotuberculosis some time within the past 50,000 years and has been infecting humans since prehistoric times. The vast majority of prehistoric plague genomes are from Late Neolithic and Bronze Age (LNBA) individuals dating to 4700–2400 cal. bp (refs. 7,8,9). These genomes fall within two distinct lineages that can be distinguished by the absence (LNBA−) or presence (LNBA+) of the ymt gene8. The ymt gene is crucial for the bacterium's survival in the flea digestive tract when the source is an infected mouse, black rat or human, and hence for the development of bubonic plague.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Full author list: Frederik Valeur Seersholm, Karl-Göran Sjögren, Julia Koelman, Malou Blank, Emma M. Svensson, Jacqueline Staring, Magdalena Fraser, Thomaz Pinotti, Hugh McColl, Charleen Gaunitz, Tatiana Ruiz-Bedoya, Lena Granehäll, Berenice Villegas-Ramirez, Anders Fischer, T. Douglas Price, Morten E. Allentoft, Astrid K. N. Iversen, Tony Axelsson, Torbjörn Ahlström, Anders Götherström, Jan Storå, Kristian Kristiansen, Eske Willerslev, Mattias Jakobsson, Helena Malmström & Martin Sikora
Abstract: Brucella melitensis is a major livestock bacterial pathogen and zoonosis, causing disease and infection-related abortions in small ruminants and humans. A considerable burden to animal-based economies today, the presence of Brucella in Neolithic pastoral communities has been hypothesised but we lack direct genomic evidence thus far. We report a 3.45X B. melitensis genome preserved in an ~8000 year old sheep specimen from Menteşe Höyük, Northwest Türkiye, demonstrating that the pathogen had evolved and was circulating in Neolithic livestock. The genome is basal with respect to all known B. melitensis and allows the calibration of the B. melitensis speciation time from the primarily cattle-infecting B. abortus to approximately 9800 years Before Present (BP), coinciding with a period of consolidation and dispersal of livestock economies. We use the basal genome to timestamp evolutionary events in B. melitensis, including pseudogenization events linked to erythritol response, the supposed determinant of the pathogen’s placental tropism in goats and sheep. Our data suggest that the development of herd management and multi-species livestock economies in the 11th–9th millennium BP drove speciation and host adaptation of this zoonotic pathogen.An 8000 years old genome reveals the Neolithic origin of the zoonosis Brucella melitensis
Louis L'Hôte, Ian Light, Valeria Mattiangeli, Matthew D. Teasdale,
Áine Halpin, Lionel Gourichon, Felix M. Key & Kevin G. Daly
July 20, 2024
Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 6132 (2024)
a mystery that scientists the world over have long been itching to solve...
Calibrated years before the present?
Is that the same as BC, as in years Before Christ?
Words matter, and academics jump through hoops to avoid the obvious.
The entire world’s chronological calculating system is still based on the Christian revolution of 2,000 years ago, like it or not.
I love history, including learning about new discoveries of early man, but it’s time that the intellectual class faced the truth and stop looking for ways to deny the history they so ardently investigate.
It doesn’t mean they have to be believers, just recognize the truth of how humanity’s time on earth is chronicled.
Failure to do so lends an air of unwarranted bias to their findings, reading their research with one eyebrow raised at their intransigence.
Interesting results, though.
RC dating uses Before Present, because obviously the object ages along with the rest of us. RC dating uses a baseline of 1950, because that’s when Bibby developed the technique. It isn’t avoiding the obvious, it is plainly obvious. The calibration refers to tree-ring dendrochronology. Period. Not BC, not AD. Raw RC dates are based on a uniform ratio, but due to variation in solar activity, the actual ratio also varies. More here, BenLurkin wondered about this last week or so.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4276885/posts?page=10#10
I guess that would be around 3000BC. It is amazing what these idiots will do in order to not reference Christ.
It has zero to do with referencing or not referencing Jesus. It’s literally just how the process works.
The process of carbon dating just estimates the age of something before a specific date arbitrarily called the “present” which is not the present, but 1950, (which was the present when they started carbon dating things.)
Uncalibrated radiocarbon dates are expressed as “years BP” and are not directly equivalent to calendar dates. Calibrated dates, on the other hand, are expressed as “cal years” or “cal BP” and provide a precise estimate of the calendar year.
Nonetheless, it’s still an estimate and it’s bad form to assign a proper calendar date to something that potentially varies quite a bit.
No, it’s 2024 years different from BC.
“The process of carbon dating just estimates the age of something before a specific date arbitrarily called the “present” which is not the present, but 1950, (which was the present when they started carbon dating things.)”
The article uses the calibrated BP abbreviation which you indicate is 1950s we subtract 1950 to contextualized to popular and well understood literature?
Kind of, yes.
But the BP “date” is constantly being dialed in (see posts above discussing “wiggles”) that can shorten or lengthen the amount of time represented by things that changed the process of C19 decay or increased or decreased the amount of C19 in the atmosphere (volcanoes, solar flares, whatever).
So they use the BP date with the understanding that the conventional calendar date it corresponds to might swing quite a bit. It’s a way to keep articles evergreen and not have to search for all those AD/BC estimations that are now off.
I am a petroleum geologist/engineer and we have to use similar off-calendar calendars for similar reasons. (We don’t use C19 because it’s generally long gone with what we deal with. But other decaying atoms work, albeit tied to events where the calendar date is estimated. To say it a different way, we know something is “x years” from “y event” but aren’t really positive when y was.
I think it is bad form to write an article to the general public and assign a date the no one knows what it means. Why speak above everyone’s head. It is better to assign a calendar date range. I am still not sure of even what millennia they are talking about.
It’s a but of a dispute among academic types.
I agree with you, but the prevailing school of thought is to give a proper calendar date is misleading the public at large. And they aren’t wrong, either.
Well they could do both. And then explain what you are saying.
No , this is not theft of a Christian calender unlike “BCE” and “CE”.
BP (before present) is based on the year 1950.
1950 years actually
Why 1,950 instead of 2,024?
Because the “present” for the calculation is when they started C19 dating, which is 1950.
Before the Common Era….BCE
Now in common usage
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