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Rapa Nui (Easter Island) with its gigantic statues and treeless landscape has fascinated researchers for centuries. A new genetic study published in this week's Nature disproves the popular theory that the Rapanui population collapsed as a result of an "ecocide"—a human-caused environmental suicide—and shows that the Rapanui admixed with Indigenous Americans centuries before Europeans arrived on the island.   Rapa Nui or Te Pito o Te Henua (the navel of the world), also known as Easter Island, is one of the most isolated inhabited places in the world. Located in the Pacific, it lies over 1,900 km east of the closest inhabited Polynesian island and 3,700 km west of South America. Although the island, its inhabitants and their rich culture have been extensively studied by archaeologists, anthropologists and geneticists, two key elements of Rapanui history remain very controversial to this day. One of these is the theory of population collapse through "ecocide" or "ecological suicide" in the 1600s, thought to be the result of overpopulation and resource mismanagement. The other major contention is whether the Polynesian ancestors of the Rapanui interacted with Indigenous Americans before contact with Europeans in 1722. This week's issue of Nature features a genetic study that sheds light on these two debates related to Rapanui history by examining the genomes of 15 Rapanui individuals who lived…

Time for essential changes The Middle Stone Age (MSA) in South Africa during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 marks a crucial phase in human cultural evolution. Using a broad methodological repertoire, the sites Bushman Rock Shelter, Rose Cottage Cave and Sibhudu Cave are investigated to draw conclusions about technology, techno-economy and land use as well as the emergence of innovations and group networking. The MSA of MIS 5, dated to approximately 130,000 to 75,000 years ago, is characterized by the emergence of new behaviors typical of modern hunter-gatherer societies and regionally distinct technological traditions, manifesting significant changes in human cultural evolution. Although for a long time there was a lack of scientific attention and only certain regions were studied in this regard, the focus of research has increased significantly, especially in the last decade, and more and more evidence is being presented that underlines the unique, inventive and creative character of this period. Increasing data from archaeology, paleoanthropology, paleogenetics and paleoclimatology point to a complex mosaic scenario of small-scale structured and widely interconnected populations within Africa during the MSA, which successively gave rise to cognitively modern humans with specific cultural characteristics. MIS 5 appears to be the period in which new ideas were tested and behavioural complexity emerged due to various internal and external circumstances before being consolidated in the…

From the Stone Age to today: Genetic analyses reveal history of domesticated sheep. Through the statistical analysis of hundreds of DNA samples from Stone Age and modern sheep, an international research team with the participation of the ÖAI has reconstructed the domestication, distribution and population development over the last 12,000 years. The results were published in the journal "Science Advances". Sheep are among the first animals to be domesticated by humans. Excavations of the Stone Age settlement of Aşıklı Höyük in Central Anatolia (present-day Turkey), which is around 10,300 years old, show early traces of sheep being kept as livestock. An international research team has succeeded in isolating mitochondrial DNA from the bone remains and comparing them with samples from other regions and later eras. Sheep populations reconstructed over 10,000 years ago Aşıklı Höyük was inhabited for 1,000 years, which means we have an incomparable treasure trove of genetic information about a very early, domesticated sheep population. The genetic experts isolated mitochondrial DNA, which is only passed on from the mother, from bones and combined it with samples from other archaeological sites in Anatolia, the Levant, the Caucasus and Europe. By comparing it with the mitochondrial DNA of modern sheep from 15 countries, we were able to reconstruct the development of sheep populations in Europe and Asia over the past…