Autor: Martin Dockner

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…

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…