Gut microbes can be decisive in fat accumulation

Credit: Image created by Ivana Semova, PhD

Certain gut microbes, known as Firmicutes, whose abundance varies from individual to individual, seem to be critical in fat absorption in the stomach and may be a major cause behind the obesity pandemic.

So far this has only been tested in zebrafish (a model organism not so different from us) but there are previous studies in humans that do suggest that the abundance of these microbes may be critical for us too. If so, it would explain how the long-term diet and not just the short-term one affects weight because the abundance of these bacteria would mostly be affected by long term trends, beginning in childhood.

Ivana Semova, Microbiota Regulate Intestinal Absorption and Metabolism of Fatty Acids in the Zebrafish. Host & Microbe 2012. Freely available at the time of this citation ··> LINK [doi:10.1016/j.chom.2012.08.003]

Main source: Science Daily. 

Convergent evolution towards big brains in humans and dolphins

From Not Exactly Rocket Science (via John Hawks' Weblog):

Every whale and dolphin evolved from a deer-like animal with slender, hoofed legs, which lived between 53 and 56 million years ago. Over time, these ancestral creatures became more streamlined, and their tails widened into flukes. They lost their hind limbs, and their front ones became paddles. And they became smarter. Today, whales and dolphins – collectively known as cetaceans – are among the most intelligent of mammals, with smarts that rival our own primate relatives.

Now, Shixia Xu from Nanjing Normal University has found that a gene called ASPM seems to have played an important role in the evolution of cetacean brains. The gene shows clear signatures of adaptive change at two points in history, when the brains of some cetaceans ballooned in size. But ASPM has also been linked to the evolution of bigger brains in another branch of the mammal family tree – ours. It went through similar bursts of accelerated evolution in the great apes, and especially in our own ancestors after they split away from chimpanzees.

It seems that both primates and cetaceans—the intellectual heavyweights of the animal world—could owe our bulging brains to changes in the same gene. “It’s a significant result,” says Michael McGowen, who studies the genetic evolution of whales at Wayne State University. “The work on ASPM shows clear evidence of adaptive evolution, and adds to the growing evidence of convergence between primates and cetaceans from a molecular perspective.”

... continue reading at Not Exactly Rocket Science. 

Note: it is one of the microcephalin genes, if you wondered.

Alert: British henge to be destroyed by urban develoment

From The Heritage Journal:

Henge to be tarmacked!

When we say tarmacked we mean treated like Tarmac plc would – utterly destroyed for money while lots of aren’t-we-caring claptrap is mouthed by the culprits. Why can’t they just build on the ruddy thing without insulting people with the silly chat?

The site is at Bishop’s Stortford. Thousands of new homes are to be built on the town’s ironically termed “Areas of Special Restraint”. The county council’s historic environment unit says:

“Interpretation is tentative at this stage but the Hazel End site, involving trenches on both fields alongside Hazel End Road, has identified the remains of a probable burial mound, of Late Neolithic (c4500-2500BC) or Early Bronze Age date (c2500-1700BC) several ditches, pits and post-holes of probable Bronze Age date, and, in the lower field next to the River Stort, a roughly cobbled surface covered with Late Iron Age and Roman pottery. “Investigations within the larger area, enclosed by the bypass, have identified an enclosure and ditches of probable Iron Age date (c800-100BC) an enclosure of possible Roman date (further excavation may clarify this) and also another prehistoric burial or possible henge (a ritual enclosure) of late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age date (c3000-1700BC). “This circular, ditched feature appears to contain several cremation burials in the ditch and it has a central feature that may also be a burial. If so, it is potentially, an important find.”

It adds: “The finds would have to be excavated in detail and recorded before new homes could be built.  Alternatively they could potentially be protected and preserved – barring new construction.”

Compare and contrast the caring, sharing developers:

“As expected on a site of this size and in this location – on the edge of a historic town – there’s archaeology but not of any particular significance and it would not prevent development occurring on our site.
“As a responsible developer we are responding to the finds by extending some of the trenches to check whether there’s anything else there.

“The finds are of local interest, but the condition is such that do not warrant preservation in situ.”

43,000 years old advanced flake industry from Northern China

The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences continues producing interesting news: a rich flake industry from Xujiacheng (Zhuanglang County, Gansu Province).

Nine stratigraphic layers were identified, the main bloc of which has been estimated to be 43-36,000 years old.

The stone tool assemblage of this site shows close ties with the Flake Tool Industry (Main Industry) of North China. It provides new materials to discuss human adaptive behavior, migration, and interaction with environment in this area”, said first author LI Feng of the IVPP.

This industry is probably the indication of colonization of this region by Homo sapiens. Unlike in referential West Eurasia, where the main industry (Aurignacoid) is based on blades and was once thought to define the Upper Paleolithic, in East Asia for whichever reasons blade technology only arrived later and our kin used instead a flake based industry. However a quick look at the resulting tools shows that it has not much to envy to the Western blade fashion:

Fig.1 Cores from cultural layer 4B at the Xujiacheng site.
(Image by LI Feng)

Fig.2 Flakes from cultural layer 4B at the Xujiacheng site.
(Image by LI Feng)

Fig.3 Retouched tools from cultural layer 4B at the Xujiacheng site.
1-7, Sidescrapers；8, Denticulate；9, Notch；10, Point；11-14, Drills；15, Chopper.
(Image by LI Feng)

Source: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (h/t Pileta).

Evolving bigger brains everywhere?

Peking Man (CC by Mutt)

New craniometric research on the NE Asian Homo erectus (also known as Peking Man or Homo erectus pekinensis) seems to confirm that the population grew bigger brains with limited external input. If correct, this may mean that the pressure towards bigger brains has been a generalized tendency in all Homo sp. populations. 

Late H. erectus pekinensis had cranial capacities above 1000 cc., in some cases bordering our own averages and certainly within our range. 

This research highlights that there is no apparent evolution in the shape of the head while the size did grow along time. However craniometry is a very inexact science.

Source: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Late Neolithic" mtDNA from Germany

Wartberg culture pottery (CC by Athinaios)

A new paper on ancient European mtDNA:

Esther J. Lee et al., Collective burials among agro-pastoral societies in later Neolithic Germany: Perspectives from ancient DNA. Science 2012. Pay per view ··> LINK [doi:10.1016/j.jas.2012.08.037]

Abstract

Ancient DNA research has focused on the genetic patterns of the earliest farmers during the European Neolithic, especially with regards to the demographic changes in the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture. However, genetic data is relatively lacking after this earliest transition period, when societies had fully adapted to new agrarian lifestyles specific to their local environment. During the later central European Neolithic (ca. 3600 - 2800 cal BC), large-scale collective burials and monumental architecture appeared within the landscape of many agricultural societies. This phenomenon has been argued to represent the emergence of a “collective” identity. With the aim of exploring genetic-based relations among individuals collectively buried, we obtained human skeletal remains of nearly 200 individuals from four later Neolithic collective burial sites in Germany: Calden, Odagsen, Großenrode, and Panker. We successfully reproduced reliable mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplotypes from eight Neolithic individuals, which were assigned to haplogroups H, HV0, and X2. Shared haplotypes observed among individuals within Calden and Odagsen suggest genetic relations may have shaped the arrangement of the deceased within later Neolithic agricultural groups.

As the study is pay per view I have no idea yet of the details beyond the abstract. However collective burials means Megalithic or similar (clannic burials), distinct from the original Danubian style, which was individual. This and the dates rather speak of the Early Chalcolithic, rather than Neolithic proper, when the Western Danubian culture of Rössen split into several groups, sometimes influenced by the Funnelbeaker phenomenon and most of them also by the meantime the collective (clannic) burial phenomenon, often in megalithic tombs (dolmens).

For what I could muster Calden, Odagsen and Großenrode belong to the Wartberg culture of Central Germany, while Panker could be from a more northernly location (Deeply Impressed Pottery, Tiefstichkeramik (TSK), culture probably). Wartberg culture is of clear Danubian derivation (via Michelsberg) but with influences from the likely first Western Indoeuropean core of the Baalberge culture; they practiced collective (clannic) burial in both non-megalithic and megalithic tombs (gallery graves) .



Update:

After reading the paper, I can add some details to the already mentioned data. The authors successfully sequenced HVS-I plus some standard coding region sites of eight individuals from Panker (1), Calden (4) and Odagsen (3) but none from Großenrode, whose geographical location I inferred correctly above.

The haplogroups are:

• Wartberg culture:
• Calden (n=4): H2 (2 individuals, same haplotype), HV0 and X2
• Odagsen (n=3): H2 and HV0 (2 individuals, same haplotype)
• TSK (or other Funnelbeaker, also Globular Amphorae):
• Panker (n=1): H1

While it is not explicitly addressed in the paper, I understand that there is strong likelihood of these HV0 being actually its main subhaplogroup V.

TSK pot (source)

The dominance of H2 and HV0 (V?), as well as the lack of H1, in Wartberg culture individuals is also interesting and may be an ethnic marker. X2 is just a typical Neolithic lineage, surely only arrived to Europe with the Neolithic and has been found often in ancient DNA from Neolithic groups from Central, Northern and Southern Europe.

In turn the northernmost individual, from a more "aboriginal" group arguably, sports the most common European haplogroup today: H1, widespread in Atlantic areas from the Sahara to Finland.

While haplogroup H in general (H* and H6) is now known to have existed among Paleolithic Europeans (link 1, link 2), H1 as such has only been detected with some certainty (as H1b via HVS-1) in Epipaleolithic Portugal (Chandler 2005, reported as H) and, after that, in the Neolithic of Franchti Cave (Greece), Santimamiñe (Basque Country) and Nerja (Andalusia). In the Chalcolithic period H1 is known in Languedoc, Basque Country and Andalusia, as well as in contemporary Kurdistan but this sample of Panker is the first known individual to carry this lineage, now dominant, in Northern Europe.

Beautiful amber elk from Epipaleolithic Low Germany

Pileta de Prehistoria calls my attention to this beautiful figurine of an elk carved in amber found in a farm from Northern Germany (exact spot not specified anyhwere).

The artwork seems to belong to Federmesser culture, sometimes described as part of the Azilian culture (Epi-Magdalenian in any case), that overlapped in extension the more locally rooted and technologically distinct Ahrensburgian culture.

S. Veil et al.,  A 14 000-year-old amber elk and the origins of northern European art. Antiquity 2012. Pay per view ··> LINK.

Abstract

A Late Palaeolithic amber figurine has been skilfully recovered and reassembled from a ploughed open site in northern Germany. Dated between 11 800 and 11 680 cal BC it occupies a key point between the Magdalenian and the Mesolithic. The authors show that the figurine represents a female elk which was probably carried on the top of a wooden staff. They argue for continuity of art but change of belief in this crucial transition period. 

The elk head was part of a larger piece, now broken:

 

Main source: About.com - Archaeology: Art of the Azilian: 14,000 year old Amber Elk Figurine.