Manufacturing traces and pot-forming processes during the Early Neolithic at Cueva de El Toro (Málaga, Spain, 5280-4780 BCE)

Altres ajuts: Acord transformatiu CRUE-CSICJavier Cámara is a predoctoral researcher with a FI-DGR 2017 grant (No.: 00567) funded by Generalitat de Catalunya. The authors wish to thank Dr. L. Gomart (CNRS, UMR 8215 Trajectoires) for her helpful comments and observations to identify the new technologies discovered in the ongoing researches on prehistoric pottery. The authors also wish to thank the comments and criticisms made by anonymous reviewers, which improved the earliest version of the paper.This paper reports the results of forming processes used in pottery manufacture at La Cueva de El Toro (Málaga, Spain) during the Early Neolithic (5280-4780 cal. BCE). La Cueva de El Toro is one of the most important sites of reference on the southern Iberian Peninsula for providing extensive and systematised data on early farming practices. The identification of manufacturing traces on pottery has enabled the assessment of the variability of forming techniques used by the communities of herders that seasonally inhabited the cave during the Early Neolithic. Forming processes were also compared with characteristic features of pottery products (typology, decorations) that are representative of the first pottery production in this area. Furthermore, this study provides new insights into the distribution of the first pot-forming processes in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, which suggest the use of similar techniques to the forming-sequences documented at other Early Neolithic sites (the use of coils and circular patches) and other forming processes (moulding process and the use of discs) which are still unknown in the Western Mediterranean

Interacción entre clima y ocupación humana en la configuración del paisaje vegetal del Parque Nacional de Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici a lo largo de los últimos 15.000 años

The vegetation of the National Park of Aigüestortes i Estany de St Maurici is the result of an interaction between climate, plant community dynamics and the human occupation of the territory. The OCUPAproject aimed to reconstruct this interaction across the last millennia combining methods from palaeoecology and archaeology. The study focused primarily on the Sant Nicolau valley and built on the multidisciplinary analysis of the sedimentary archive of two lakes (Llebreta and Redó) and a number of archaeological sites located in shelters and outdoors. There is archaeological evidence of human presencesince 9000 yr cal BP, and a continuous record since 7500 yr cal BP. At early stages, humans transformed the surroundings of the shelters occupied and lithic tools indicate contacts with locations far away (i.e.,the Ebro plains). Since more than 3000 years ago, there has been human impact on the vegetation withoutinterruption until present. Initially, the impacts were mostly related to livestock: use of fire to open grazing lands, soil erosion and, during the medieval period, forestry and eutrophication of lakes. The agriculture impact in the lower part of the valley (e.g., Llebreta) occurred about 2100 yr ago, although some cereal grains and tools for harvesting have been found for the Neolithic. In the medieval period, the impact was higher than during the last centuries. In general, the changes in the human land use approximately follow the major changes in climate, but the specific causal link is likely related to the social and cultural dynamics of a broader territory since the Neolithic

Porcine colonization of the Americas: a 60k SNP story

The pig, Sus scrofa, is a foreign species to the American continent. Although pigs originally introduced in the Americas should be related to those from the Iberian Peninsula and Canary islands, the phylogeny of current creole pigs that now populate the continent is likely to be very complex. Because of the extreme climates that America harbors, these populations also provide a unique example of a fast evolutionary phenomenon of adaptation. Here, we provide a genome wide study of these issues by genotyping, with a 60k SNP chip, 206 village pigs sampled across 14 countries and 183 pigs from outgroup breeds that are potential founders of the American populations, including wild boar, Iberian, international and Chinese breeds. Results show that American village pigs are primarily of European ancestry, although the observed genetic landscape is that of a complex conglomerate. There was no correlation between genetic and geographical distances, neither continent wide nor when analyzing specific areas. Most populations showed a clear admixed structure where the Iberian pig was not necessarily the main component, illustrating how international breeds, but also Chinese pigs, have contributed to extant genetic composition of American village pigs. We also observe that many genes related to the cardiovascular system show an increased differentiation between altiplano and genetically related pigs living near sea level.WBP is funded by COLCIENCIAS (Francisco José de Caldas fellowship 497/2009, Colombia), CAS thanks grants from CAPES and EMBRAPA (Brazil), YRC is recipient of a PhD studentship from MICINN (Spain, ref. AP2008-01450), AEC is recipient of a PhD studentship from MICINN (Spain). Work funded by Consolider CSD2007-00036 ‘Center for Research in Agrigenomics’ and AGL2010-14822 grants (Spain) to MPE, EU SABRE project FOOD-CT-2006-01625, USDA project 2007-04315 (USA), Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias, San Pedro (UNA), Unión de Gremios de la Producción (UGP) and Empresa San Rafael Agricola y Ganadera SRL (Paraguay), Universidad Técnica de Oruro (Bolivia), Programa de Conservación de los Bancos de Germoplasma, Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (grant 048-2011) and Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (Colombia), and Centro de Validación de Tecnologías Agropecuarias (CEDEVA, Formosa, Argentina).Peer reviewe

Harnessing genomic information for livestock improvement.

The world demand for animal-based food products is anticipated to increase by 70% by 2050. Meeting this demand in a way that has a minimal impact on the environment will require the implementation of advanced technologies, and methods to improve the genetic quality of livestock are expected to play a large part. Over the past 10 years, genomic selection has been introduced in several major livestock species and has more than doubled genetic progress in some. However, additional improvements are required. Genomic information of increasing complexity (including genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic and microbiome data), combined with technological advances for its cost-effective collection and use, will make a major contribution