Ancient World Review

Israeli Scientists Brew Beer From Ancient Yeast

"What kind of beer did the Pharaohs drink? In ancient times, beer was an important ingredient in people's daily diet. Great powers were attributed to beer in the ancient world, particularly for religious worship and healing properties. The pottery used to produce beer in antiquity served as the basis for this new research. The research was led by Dr. Ronen Hazan and Dr. Michael Klutstein, microbiologists from the School of Dental Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI). They examined the colonies of yeast that formed and settled in the pottery's nano-pores. Ultimately, they were able to resurrect this yeast to create a high-quality beer...that's approximately 5,000 years old." Source: Science Daily.

Hidden Viruses In The Human Genome

"We have accumulated quite a few ancient viruses, it seems; estimates vary between about 4 and 8% of the total human genome, but identifying individual HERVs [Human Endogenous Retroviruses] is difficult because most of them are very rare. However, new research examining the genomes from around 2,500 people of varied ethnic origins found a total of nineteen new different HERVs or viral DNA sequences. Most of these were incomplete, but there was one full viral genome sequence among the new HERVs – only the second ever to be identified. Seventeen previously described viral sequences were also found." Source: Genomics Education Programme (2016).

Note: The fact that four to eight percent of the human genome is made up of the genetic residue of alien viruses is strange enough, but the discovery that genes can be transferred between species has led to the creation of "transgenic animals," i.e., animals that have been given genes from other species in a deliberate attempt to produce specific effects. For instance, in one gene-therapy experiment, Stanford scientists created luminous mice by injecting their cells with the protein that makes fireflies glow in the dark. And a quick search turned up at least one company that offers "transgenic mouse and rat services" including Custom Model Generation -- "the creation of custom genetically engineered" rodents.

There's no reason for alarm, though. I'm sure nothing will go wrong with research like this.

How Yersinia Pestis Evolved To Cause Pneumonic Plague

Pneumonic plague, a particularly nasty form of the disease, spreads very quickly. Untreated, it has a mortality rate of almost 100 percent, according to Wikipedia, and "[s]ome hypothesize that the pneumonic version of the plague was mainly responsible for the Black Death that resulted in approximately 50 million deaths in the 1300s."

Report from 2017.

There are three different strains of the plague and it's possible that they were all involved in the Black Death along with several other diseases:

"Many scholars arguing for Y. pestis as the major agent of the pandemic suggest that its extent and symptoms can be explained by a combination of bubonic plague with other diseases, including typhus, smallpox and respiratory infections. In addition to the bubonic infection, others point to additional septicemic (a type of 'blood poisoning') and pneumonic (an airborne plague that attacks the lungs before the rest of the body) forms of the plague, which lengthen the duration of outbreaks throughout the seasons and help account for its high mortality rate and additional recorded symptoms."

Study Says Ancient Romans May Have Built "Invisibility Cloaks" Into Structures

Closed captions helpful.

"Scientists are hard at work developing real-world 'invisibility cloaks' thanks to a special class of exotic manmade 'metamaterials.' Now a team of French scientists has suggested in a recent preprint on the physics arXiv that certain ancient Roman structures, like the famous Roman Colosseum, have very similar structural patterns, which may have protected them from damage from earthquakes over the millennia." Source: Ars Technica.

Note: "Metamaterials are artificial structures comprising arrays of resonators that manipulate electromagnetic waves or sound in ways not normally found in nature. A mathematical framework called transformation optics has been developed to design novel devices made from metamaterials – including invisibility cloaks that divert microwaves round objects." (Physics World)

Comment: Despite the headline, nobody's suggesting that the Romans actually built "invisibility cloaks" into the Colosseum. The point seems to be that the structure of the Colosseum may have helped divert the seismic waves produced by earthquakes in the same way that metamaterials can theoretically divert electromagnetic waves like light, a property which could conceivably be used to create an actual invisibility cloak. The physics here is pretty interesting, but it doesn't really have much of anything to do with ancient engineering.

Some Of The People Who Built Stonehenge Came From Wales

Video from 2017.

"Despite over a century of intense study, we still know very little about the people buried at Stonehenge or how they came to be there. Now, archeologists suggest that a number of the people that were buried at the Wessex site had moved with and likely transported the bluestones used in the early stages of the monument's construction, sourced from the Preseli Mountains of west Wales." Source: Science Daily (2018).

This study was based on a strontium isotope analysis of cremated remains found at Stonehenge:

"Analysis of small fragments of cremated human bone from an early phase of the site's history around 3000 BC, when it was mainly used as a cemetery, showed that at least 10 of the 25 people did not live near Stonehenge prior to their death. Instead, they found the highest strontium isotope ratios in the remains were consistent with living in western Britain, a region that includes west Wales -- the known source of Stonehenge's bluestones."

Video from 2017.

Archaeologists have known for years that the Stonehenge bluestones came from Wales, but they only identified the actual quarry sites [1] a few years ago:

"The very large standing stones at Stonehenge are of ‘sarsen’, a local sandstone, but the smaller ones, known as ‘bluestones’, come from the Preseli hills in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Geologists have known since the 1920s that the bluestones were brought to Stonehenge from somewhere in the Preseli Hills, but only now has there been collaboration with archaeologists to locate and excavate the actual quarries from which they came." Source: University College London (2015).

[1]: Some archaeologists questioned the idea that the bluestones came from Wales, claiming that there was no evidence that the Presili sites were ever used as quarries. I'm not sure where this controversy stands today. If the bluestones, some weighing up to four tons, were quarried in the Presili hills -- and the current consensus seems to be that they were -- they would have had to be transported around 140 miles to Stonehenge. 

If accurate, this analysis of the cremated remains at Stonehenge not only supports the theory that the bluestones were quarried in Wales, but suggests that some of the quarry workers traveled with the stones to the Stonehenge site and were most likely involved in the early stages of its construction.

DNA Helix May Have Originated With Startling Ease

"Trying to explain how DNA and RNA evolved to form such neat spirals has been a notorious enigma in science. But a new study suggests the rotation may have occurred with ease billions of years ago when RNA's chemical ancestors casually spun into spiralled strands." Source: Archaeology News Network .

Note: This research describes how the spiral shape and general structure of DNA and RNA molecules might have evolved. Up until now, this was considered to have been an almost miraculous event:

"Making RNA or DNA using their actual nucleobases in the lab without the aid of the enzymes of living cells that usually do this job is more than a herculean task. Thus, although RNA and DNA are ubiquitous on Earth now, their evolution on pre-life Earth would appear to have been an anomaly requiring erratic convergences of extreme conditions."

This new study challenges that view, however:

"By contrast, the Georgia Tech researchers' model of chemical evolution holds that precursor nucleobases self-assembled easily to into ancestral prototypes -- that were polymer-like and referred to as assemblies -- which later evolved into RNA."

Bringing Back The Mammoth

Video from 2013.

"Paleogenomics has become a reality only with the onset of next-generation sequencing. This technique overcomes problems that bedeviled Sanger sequencing, such as the necessity of cloning ancient DNA into vectors (DNA libraries), thus requiring a cloning host like E. coli to propagate it. Both steps are likely to introduce severe biases into the mixtures of ancient DNA to be analyzed. Next-generation sequencing, as marketed by Roche/454 Life Sciences, combines the two principles of emulsion PCR and pyro-sequencing to allow for a several-orders-higher throughput than what is possible on a Sanger capillary-electrophoresis DNA sequencer, while avoiding sequencing biases. It thus becomes feasible to sequence DNA from samples of fossil specimens that might contain only a small percentage of endogenous DNA." Source: Mammoth Genome Project, Pennsylvania State University.

Comment: Descriptions of how DNA technology works might as well be written in Cretan hieroglyphics as far as I'm concerned, but it seems that paleogeneticists used to have to insert their ancient DNA fragments into the DNA of some kind of host organism like a modern bacteria in order to store it and get it to multiply. That created all kinds of errors, but they now have a new technique that supposedly makes it easier to create entire (?) sequences of fossil DNA from small samples without screwing everything up. That's a major step forward, but if you consider the fact that we still don't have any mammoth clones running around, the process must still be incredibly complex and difficult.

Scientists Measure Severity Of Drought During The Maya Collapse

Video from 2015.

"'The role of climate change in the collapse of Classic Maya civilisation is somewhat controversial, partly because previous records are limited to qualitative reconstructions, for example whether conditions were wetter or drier,' said Nick Evans, a PhD student in Cambridge's Department of Earth Sciences and the paper's first author. 'Our study represents a substantial advance as it provides statistically robust estimates of rainfall and humidity levels during the Maya downfall.'" Source: Archaeology News Network.

Note: Researchers found that "annual precipitation decreased between 41% and 54% during the period of the Maya civilisation's collapse, with periods of up to 70% rainfall reduction during peak drought conditions, and that relative humidity declined by 2% to 7% compared to today."

No one really knows what happened to the Classic Mayan civilization. A number of theories have been proposed, but the drought theory is one of the more plausible. According to Wikipedia, "[c]limatic factors were first implicated in the collapse as early as 1931 by Mayanists Thomas Gann and J. E. S. Thompson. In The Great Maya Droughts, Richardson Gill gathers and analyzes an array of climatic, historical, hydrologic, tree ring, volcanic, geologic, lake bed, and archeological research, and demonstrates that a prolonged series of droughts probably caused the Classic Maya collapse. The drought theory provides a comprehensive explanation, because non-environmental and cultural factors (excessive warfare, foreign invasion, peasant revolt, less trade, etc.) can all be explained by the effects of prolonged drought on Classic Maya civilization."

Mystery Of The Basel Papyrus Solved

"Since the 16th century, Basel has been home to a mysterious papyrus. With mirror writing on both sides, it has puzzled generations of researchers. A research team from the University of Basel has now discovered that it is an unknown medical document from late antiquity. The text was likely written by the famous Roman physician Galen." Source: University of Basel.

Note: "Galen, of Pergamum (AD 129 - ?199/216) in a spectacular career rose from gladiator physician in Asia minor to court physician in the Rome of Marcus Aurelius." Source: Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised).

Galen was a major figure in the development of medicine in particular and science in general. "Arguably the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, Galen influenced the development of various scientific disciplines, including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and neurology, as well as philosophy and logic." (Wikipedia) According to the OCD, "his major enterprise to create a logic of scientific demonstration, surviving only in fragments, went beyond Artistotle and the Stoics in both the range and precision of its arguments."

Oldest Bubonic Plague Genome Decoded

"Nearly 4,000 years ago, a woman and a man were buried together just east of the Volga River in modern-day Russia, with a secret locked away in the pulp of their teeth." Source: Stat News.

"The bodies were uncovered just a few years ago, the teeth pulled and sent westward to the Max Planck Institute in Germany, where Maria Spyrou was working on a Ph.D. in paleogenetics. When she subjected the pulp to a bevy of genetic tests, she found something surprising: an ancestor of the bacteria responsible for the Black Death."

The bacillus Yersinia Pestis is thought to cause the plague. Maria Spyrou, in a paper published in Nature, argues that the discovery of a Y. Pestis ancestor in these prehistoric teeth shows that "the bacteria has origins at least 800 years earlier than scientists had previously thought." The find "suggests a Bronze Age origin for the Bubonic Plague."

Note: "Although prior studies had identified a single lineage of Y. pestis to be present across Eurasia during the Bronze Age, the current study suggests that there were at least two plague lineages circulating contemporaneously, and that they may have encompassed different transmission and virulence characteristics." Source: Archaeology News Network.

Related: Plague Likely a Stone Age Arrival To Central Europe (2017).