Ochre, ground stone and wrapping the dead in the Late Epipalaeolithic (Natufian) Levant: revealing the funerary practices at Shubayqa 1, Jordan

The appearance of rich and diverse funerary practices is one of the hallmarks of the Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian in the Levant. Numerous burials at a number of sites excavated mostly in the Mediterranean zone of the southern Levant have fed into the interpretation of the Natufian as a sedentary society of complex hunter-gatherers. Here, we report on the human remains recovered from Shubayqa 1, a well-dated early to late Natufian site in northeast Jordan. The majority of the minimum of 23 individuals that are represented are perinates and infants, which represents an atypical population profile. Ground stone artifacts and traces of colourants are associated with some of these individuals, providing a rare insight into funerary treatment of subadults in Natufian contexts. We interpret the Shubayqa 1 evidence in the light of current and ongoing debates concerning Natufian burial practices and the issue of social complexity

Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East

We report genome-wide ancient DNA from 44 ancient Near Easterners ranging in time between ~12,000 and 1,400 BC, from Natufian hunter–gatherers to Bronze Age farmers. We show that the earliest populations of the Near East derived around half their ancestry from a ‘Basal Eurasian’ lineage that had little if any Neanderthal admixture and that separated from other non-African lineages before their separation from each other. The first farmers of the southern Levant (Israel and Jordan) and Zagros Mountains (Iran) were strongly genetically differentiated, and each descended from local hunter–gatherers. By the time of the Bronze Age, these two populations and Anatolian-related farmers had mixed with each other and with the hunter–gatherers of Europe to greatly reduce genetic differentiation. The impact of the Near Eastern farmers extended beyond the Near East: farmers related to those of Anatolia spread westward into Europe; farmers related to those of the Levant spread southward into East Africa; farmers related to those of Iran spread northward into the Eurasian steppe; and people related to both the early farmers of Iran and to the pastoralists of the Eurasian steppe spread eastward into South Asia

Persistent Place-Making in Prehistory: the Creation, Maintenance, and Transformation of an Epipalaeolithic Landscape

Most archaeological projects today integrate, at least to some degree, how past people engaged with their surroundings, including both how they strategized resource use, organized technological production, or scheduled movements within a physical environment, as well as how they constructed cosmologies around or created symbolic connections to places in the landscape. However, there are a multitude of ways in which archaeologists approach the creation, maintenance, and transformation of human-landscape interrelationships. This paper explores some of these approaches for reconstructing the Epipalaeolithic (ca. 23,000–11,500 years BP) landscape of Southwest Asia, using macro- and microscale geoarchaeological approaches to examine how everyday practices leave traces of human-landscape interactions in northern and eastern Jordan. The case studies presented here demonstrate that these Epipalaeolithic groups engaged in complex and far-reaching social landscapes. Examination of the Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic (EP) highlights that the notion of “Neolithization” is somewhat misleading as many of the features we use to define this transition were already well-established patterns of behavior by the Neolithic. Instead, these features and practices were enacted within a hunter-gatherer world and worldview

De la récurrence à la norme: interpréter les pratiques funéraires en préhistoire

International audienceUnderstanding societal conceptions of death presents a unique challenge to prehistorians because they cannot witness first-hand the funerary practices that interest them. Rather, they are limited to studying the physical traces left behind by such practices. However, we wish to move beyond description towards interpretation, because what interests us is not simply the individual practices (or even sets of practices), but the system that unifies them and imbues them with meaning. To unravel these systems, it is important to bear in mind that not all of the acts documented in the material record were obligatory. While there is the “devoir-faire” (what must be done), there also exists the “pouvoir-faire” (what can be done). The archaeologist must carefully categorize these practices: identify their frequency (from what is never done to what is always done), as well as make correlations among the essential elements of the burial. The obvious difficulty emerges when it is time to connect the archaeological interpretation to the reality of the original funerary practices. We explore three approaches that are drawn from our individual research. The definition of the norm within a given region leads us to question more closely the criteria by which groups are defined. Next, we explore the range of variability that can be reasonably expected within a single group. Finally, we examine the degree to which norms either remain stable or change through time, as well as the interactions between funerary practices and other aspects of the society.Pour aborder le discours des hommes sur la mort, le préhistorien est réduit à traquer des gestes réalisés autour des morts qu’il découvre: afin d’éviter toute surinterprétation, nous les appelons pratiques, les « pratiques funéraires ». Or, ce que nous souhaitons, c’est passer de la description à l’interprétation. Car ce qui a un sens, une logique, ce n’est pas un geste ou une collection de gestes, mais un système. Cependant, pour décoder un tel système, il faut d’abord être conscient que les gestes ne relèvent pas tous de l’obligation: à côté du « devoir-faire », la norme, il existe un « pouvoirfaire », ce qui est laissé à l’appréciation des exécutants. Sur le plan archéologique, il faut patiemment ordonner les pratiques: identifier leur récurrence, de jamais à toujours, ainsi que les corrélations entre les éléments constitutifs de la tombe. La difficulté consiste évidemment à passer de la dimension archéologique à la dimension funéraire initiale. À partir d’exemples tirés de nos recherches individuelles, nous avons exploré trois directions. La définition de la norme dans un espace géographique nous a conduits à nous interroger sur les critères qui définissent nos ensembles. Au sein d’un ensemble défini, nous avons questionné la valeur que l’on doit accorder aux variations. Enfin, sur le plan diachronique, nous nous sommes penchés sur la permanence de la norme ou son changement, et donc sur les interactions entre la norme funéraire et les autres pans des activités sociales

La Trobe University’s 2016 Season of Field Sampling and Archaeological Excavation at the Site of Wadi Hammeh 27

International audienc

Bordetella holmesii bacteremia in a renal transplant recipient: emergence of a new pathogen.

International audienceBordetella holmesii is a gram-negative rod that was initially identified in 1995. It causes bacteremia, pneumonia, and endocarditis mostly in patients with anatomical or functional asplenia. We report here, to the best of our knowledge, the first case of B. holmesii bacteremia in a renal transplant recipient following rituximab therapy for recurrence of membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis