Earliest adorned female infant burial in Europe significant in
understanding evolution of personhood

Date:
December 14, 2021
Source:
Arizona State University
Summary:
Ten thousand years ago, a group of hunter-gatherers buried an infant
girl in an Italian cave with a rich selection of their treasured
beads and pendants, showing that even the youngest females were
recognized as full persons in their society. The excavations and
analysis of the discovery offer insight into the early Mesolithic
period, from which few recorded burials are known.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
Ten thousand years ago, just after the last Ice Age, a group of hunter- gatherers buried an infant girl in an Italian cave. They entombed her with
a rich selection of their treasured beads and pendants, and an eagle-owl
talon, signaling their grief, and showing that even the youngest females
were recognized as full persons in their society. The excavations and
analysis of the discovery are published this week in Nature Scientific
Reports and offers insight into the early Mesolithic period, from which
few recorded burials are known. Claudine Gravel-Miguel, postdoctoral
researcher with the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University (ASU) and coauthor on the paper, performed the analysis of the ornaments,
which includes over 60 pierced shell beads and four shell pendants.


========================================================================== Mortuary practices offer a window into the worldviews and social structure
of past societies. Child funerary treatment provides important insights
into who was considered a person and afforded the attributes of an
individual self, moral agency, and eligibility for group membership. The seemingly "egalitarian" funerary treatment of this infant female, who
the team nicknamed "Neve," shows that as early as 10,000 years ago in
Western Europe, even the youngest females were recognized as full persons
in their society.

"The evolution and development of how early humans buried their dead as revealed in the archaeological record has enormous cultural significance,"
says Jamie Hodgkins, ASU doctoral graduate and paleoanthropologist at
the University of Colorado Denver.

The excavation Arma Veirana, a cave in the Ligurian pre-Alps of
northwestern Italy, is a popular spot for local families to visit. Looters
also discovered the site, and their digging exposed the late Pleistocene
tools that drew researchers to the area.

The research team started surveying the site in 2015 and discovered the
remains during the last week of the 2017 field season. The team of project coordinators includes Italian collaborators Fabio Negrino, University of
Genoa, and Stefano Benazzi, University of Bologna, as well as researchers
from the University of Montreal, Washington University, University of
Ferrara, University of Tubingen, and the Institute of Human Origins.



==========================================================================
The first two excavation seasons were spent near the mouth of the cave, exposing stratigraphic layers that contained tools over 50,000 years old typically associated with Neandertals in Europe (Mousterian tools). They
also found the remains of ancient meals such as the cut-marked bones
of wild boars and elk and bits of charred fat. In addition, they found
stone tools that were much more recent and that had likely been eroding
from deeper inside the cave.

To better understand the stratigraphy of the cave and document its
occupation history, the team opened new sections further inside the cave
in 2017. As the team explored this new section, they began to unearth
pierced shell beads, which Hodgkins examined more carefully back in
the lab.

A few days after they found the first bead, one of the excavators
uncovered a small piece of the infant's cranial vault.

"I was excavating in the adjacent square and remember looking over
and thinking 'that's a weird bone,'" says Gravel-Miguel. "It quickly
became clear that not only we were looking at a human cranium, but
that it was also of a very young individual. It was an emotional day."
Using dental tools and a small paint brush, researchers spent that week
and the following field season to carefully expose the whole skeleton,
which was adorned with articulated lines of pierced shell beads.

"The excavation techniques are state-of-the-art and leave no doubt to the associations of the materials with the skeleton," said Curtis Marean,
who was not involved in the study. Marean is associate director of the Institute of Human Origins and Foundation Professor with the School of
Human Evolution and Social Change at ASU.



========================================================================== Important changes in human prehistory In a series of analyses coordinated across multiple institutions and numerous experts, the team uncovered
critical details about the ancient burial.

Radiocarbon dating determined that the child lived 10,000 years ago,
and amelogenin protein analysis and ancient DNA revealed that the
infant was a female belonging to a lineage of European women known as
the U5b2b haplogroup.

"There's a decent record of human burials before around 14,000 years
ago," said Hodgkins. "But the latest Upper Paleolithic period and
earliest part of the Mesolithic are more poorly known when it comes
to funerary practices. Infant burials are especially rare, so Neve
adds important information to help fill this gap." "The Mesolithic
is particularly interesting," said coauthor Caley Orr, ASU doctoral
graduate and paleoanthropologist and anatomist at the University of
Colorado School of Medicine. "It followed the end of the final Ice Age
and represents the last period in Europe when hunting and gathering was
the primary way of making a living. So, it's a really important time
period for understanding human prehistory." Detailed virtual histology,
or study of the tissue and structure, of the infant's teeth showed that
she died 40 to 50 days after birth and that she experienced stress that
briefly halted the growth of her teeth 47 days and 28 days before she was
born. Carbon and nitrogen analyses of the teeth revealed that the baby's
mother had been nourishing the infant in her womb on a land- based diet.

The child as a member of the community Gravel-Miguel performed an
analysis of the ornaments adorning the infant, which demonstrated
the care invested in each piece and showed that many of the ornaments
exhibited wear that proves they were passed down to the child from group members. The details of this research -- along with further results -
- are the focus of a separate article, currently under review.

Citing a similar burial of two infants dating to 11,500 years ago at
Upward Sun River, Alaska, Hodgkins said the funerary treatment of Neve
suggests that the recognition of infant females as full persons has
deep origins in a common ancestral culture that was shared by peoples
who migrated into Europe and those who migrated to North America. Or it
may have arisen in parallel in populations across the planet.

The research, excavation, and analysis were made possible with funding
from The Wenner-Gren Foundation, Leakey Foundation, National Geographic
Society Waitt Program, Hyde Family Foundations, Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the European Union's Horizon 2020
Research and Innovation Programme, and the Max Planck Society.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Arizona_State_University. Original
written by Julie Russ.

Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Jamie Hodgkins, Caley M. Orr, Claudine Gravel-Miguel, Julien Riel-
Salvatore, Christopher E. Miller, Luca Bondioli, Alessia Nava,
Federico Lugli, Sahra Talamo, Mateja Hajdinjak, Emanuela Cristiani,
Matteo Romandini, Dominique Meyer, Danylo Drohobytsky, Falko
Kuester, Genevie`ve Pothier-Bouchard, Michael Buckley, Lucia
Mancini, Fabio Baruffaldi, Sara Silvestrini, Simona Arrighi, Hannah
M. Keller, Roci'o Bele'n Griggs, Marco Peresani, David S. Strait,
Stefano Benazzi, Fabio Negrino. An infant burial from Arma Veirana
in northwestern Italy provides insights into funerary practices
and female personhood in early Mesolithic Europe.

Scientific Reports, 2021; 11 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-02804-z ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211214084538.htm

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