Old Moves
Ludus Coriovalli: Using artificial intelligence-driven simulations to identify rules for an ancient board game
Walter Crist et al.
Antiquity, February 2026, Pages 111-126
Abstract:
The history of games is obscured by our inability to recognise indicators of play in the archaeological record. Lines incised on a piece of rounded limestone found at the Roman site of Coriovallum in Heerlen, The Netherlands, evoke a board game yet do not reflect the grid of any game known today. Here, the results of use-wear analysis are used to inform artificial intelligence-driven simulations based on permutations of rules from historic Northern European games. Disproportionate wear along specific lines favours the rules of blocking games, potentially extending the time depth and regional use of this game type.
Lasting Lower Rhine–Meuse forager ancestry shaped Bell Beaker expansion
Iñigo Olalde et al.
Nature, forthcoming
Abstract:
Ancient DNA studies revealed that, in Europe from 6500 to 4000 BCE, descendants of western Anatolian farmers mixed with local hunter-gatherers resulting in 70–100% ancestry turnover, then steppe ancestry spread with the Corded Ware complex 3000–2500 BCE. Here we document an exception in the wetland, riverine and coastal areas of the Netherlands, Belgium and western Germany, using genome-wide data from 112 people 8500–1700 BCE. A distinctive population with high (approximately 50%) hunter-gatherer ancestry persisted 3,000 years later than in most European regions, reflecting incorporation of female individuals of Early European Farmer ancestry into local communities. In the western Netherlands, the arrival of the Corded Ware complex was also exceptional: lowland individuals from settlements adopting Corded Ware pottery had hardly any steppe ancestry, despite a Y-chromosome characteristic of people associated with the early Corded Ware complex. These distinctive patterns may reflect the specific ecology that they inhabited, which was not amenable to full adoption of the early Neolithic type of farming introduced with Linearbandkeramik, and resulted in distinct communities where transfer of ideas was accompanied by little gene flow. This changed with the formation of Lower Rhine–Meuse Bell Beaker users by fusion of local people (13–18%) and Corded Ware associated migrants of both sexes. Their subsequent expansion then had a disruptive impact across a much wider part of northwestern Europe, especially in Great Britain where they were the main source of a 90–100% replacement of local Neolithic ancestry.
Bronze Age non-elite mobility in Denmark examined through a new human-based bioavailable strontium isotope range
Karin Margarita Frei et al.
PLoS ONE, February 2026
Abstract:
Strontium isotope analysis is now a key method for investigating ancient human mobility, leading to a rapid expansion of available ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr datasets. Owing to the relatively homogeneous surface geological conditions across present-day Denmark (excluding Bornholm) and the growing number of regional datasets, it is now possible to construct statistically defined ranges of bioavailable strontium directly from archaeological human data. In this study, we compile 513 published strontium isotope values from tooth enamel and pars petrosa of individuals recovered from archaeological sites across present-day Denmark and add 115 new values. Using the Median Absolute Deviation (MAD) method to identify outliers in this comprehensive and diachronic database of 628 human ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios, we define the first statistically constrained, human-based range of bioavailable strontium isotope values for Denmark to ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr = 0.7089–0.7117. We interpret this range as representing typical bioavailable strontium signatures in prehistoric Denmark. We then apply it, for the first time, as one of the reference frameworks for investigating the mobility of non-elite individuals from the Nordic Bronze Age in present-day Denmark. In total, we conducted 34 strontium isotope analyses on individuals from two sites: fourteen analyses from six inhumations at Kalvehavegård on Funen, and twenty analyses from cremated individuals at Sølager on Zealand. We compare the individuals’ strontium isotope values both to established baselines relevant for past mobility studies and to the new human-based range defined in this study. The results indicate that mobility during the Nordic Bronze Age was not restricted to elite social groups but also encompassed some non-elite individuals, offering new insights into social dynamics during this formative period of European prehistory. Moreover, the new strontium dataset presented here represents the first accessible, country-wide compilation of human-derived Sr data for Denmark, providing a robust platform for future comparative studies and mobility research in the region.
Theft of Pine Nuts: Pinyon Pine as a Survivance Vehicle in the Great Basin (USA)
David Hurst Thomas et al.
American Antiquity, January 2026, Pages 207-228
Abstract:
We combine Indigenous and Western scientific ontologies to explore the deep history of pinyon pine in the Holocene Great Basin. We address 61 Theft of Pine Nuts (TPN) oral histories transcribed over the last 152 years. Contemporary Paiute, Shoshone, and Wá∙šiw storytellers still tell these narratives, which five Indigenous coauthors heard growing up. Considered judiciously and in concert with independent corroboration, these traditional oral histories (often dismissed as “myths”) potentially convey significant historical landmarks. Four themes emerge: (1) pine nuts have been a driving force in Indigenous Great Basin lifeways for millennia, (2) TPN oral histories pinpoint homelands beyond which pinyon trees grow today, (3) TPN narratives encode shifting animal biodiversity, and (4) massive ice barriers (likely dating to the Late Pleistocene) thwarted pine-nut thieves. We seek out elements encoded in oral histories that reflect pinyon-pine ecology and pinyon as a long-term vehicle of survivance among Indigenous Great Basin communities. Our findings reflect Roger Echo-Hawk’s (2000:90) wise counsel that “written words and spoken words need not compete for authority in academia, nor should the archaeological record be viewed as the antithesis of oral records. Peaceful coexistence and mutual interdependence offer more useful paradigms for these ‘ways of knowing.’”
Is the human chin a spandrel? Insights from an evolutionary analysis of ape craniomandibular form
Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel et al.
PLoS ONE, January 2026
Abstract:
Humans are unique among primates in possessing a chin, yet it is currently unclear whether the form of the symphyseal region of the mandible where the chin is located is the product of direct selection or a by-product of evolutionary pressures on other craniomandibular features. Here, we conduct an evolutionary analysis of hominoid craniomandibular traits to test three hypotheses: symphyseal mandibular traits evolved (1) neutrally due to genetic drift, (2) under direct selection, and (3) as a by-product (or “spandrel”) of selection on other craniomandibular traits. Evolutionary rates of morphological change, via Lande’s generalized genetic distance, were estimated along each branch of a fully-resolved hominoid phylogeny to reveal patterns of neutral, stabilizing and directional selection. Directional selection was detected along the branch between humans and the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans, against a backdrop of pervasive stabilizing selection and neutral evolution in hominoids. Significant directional selection was found on cranial traits reflecting increased basicranial flexion, neurocranial expansion, and reduction in lower facial prognathism, and on mandibular traits that generate a more parabolic-shaped, gracile mandible with a smaller ramus and shallower corpus. In contrast, of the nine mandibular “chin” traits, only three were under significant direct selection, while the other six were either under no selection or indirect selection. Thus, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that the symphyseal morphology that forms the human chin evolved largely as a by-product (i.e., spandrel) of direct selection for reduced anterior dental size and the craniofacial changes correlated with the evolution of bipedalism in hominins, rather than as a specific adaptation.