Mark Aldenderfer

University of California, Merced | UCM · School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts

We present three atlatl hooks unearthed at the Jiskairumoko and Kaillachuro archaeological sites dated to the Terminal Archaic and Early Formative periods (5000–3000 BP). Using morphological analysis – a typological comparison with eleven other specimens recovered from various sites in the South-Central Andes – and high-power microwear analysis, we...

Malaria-causing protozoa of the genus Plasmodium have exerted one of the strongest selective pressures on the human genome, and resistance alleles provide biomolecular footprints that outline the historical reach of these species¹. Nevertheless, debate persists over when and how malaria parasites emerged as human pathogens and spread around the glo...

We present three atlatl hooks unearthed at the Jiskairumoko and Kaillachuro archaeological sites dated to the Terminal Archaic and Early Formative periods (5000–3000 BP). Using morphological analysis – a typological comparison with eleven other specimens recovered from various sites in the South-Central Andes – and high-power microwear analysis, we...

Using genome-wide data of 89 ancient individuals dated to 5100 to 100 years before the present (B.P.) from 29 sites across the Tibetan Plateau, we found plateau-specific ancestry across plateau populations, with substantial genetic structure indicating high differentiation before 2500 B.P. Northeastern plateau populations rapidly showed admixture a...

Neolithization was a complex, protracted process of domestication, sedentarization, and technology change that occurred in various combinations in various times and places around the world. Understanding the causal relationships among those and other important human behaviors remains an analytical challenge. This study examines Neolithization throu...

Present-day Tibetans have adapted both genetically and culturally to the high altitude environment of the Tibetan Plateau, but fundamental questions about their origins remain unanswered. Recent archaeological and genetic research suggests the presence of an early population on the Plateau within the past 40 thousand years, followed by the arrival...

Recent discoveries on the importance of microbes for human biology, health, and culture, the rise of antimicrobial resistance, and developing technological advancements necessitate new dialogues about human relationships with microbes. Long perceptible only through their transformations—from epidemic disease to alcoholic beverages—it is now possibl...

Archaeological surface assemblages composed of lithic scatters comprise a large proportion of the archaeological record. Dating such surface artifacts has remained inherently difficult owing to the dynamic nature of Earth-surface processes affecting these assemblages and because no satisfactory chronometric dating technique exists that can be direc...

Anthropological research in the high-elevation regions of northwestern Nepal offers insights into the populationhistory of the Himalayan arc through a multi- and interdisciplinary approach that includes not only archaeologicaldata and historic and ethnographic accounts but also genomic, isotopic, and bioarchaeologicaldata, as well as innovative use...

In the southern part of Kyushu Island in southern Japan and the small islands further south the earliest pottery is found beneath the Satsuma tephra, which has been well dated to ca. 12,800 cal BP. Here we focus on Incipient Jomon pottery, 14,000/13,500–12,800 cal BP, from the Sankakuyama I site on Tanegashima Island. Previous visual analysis of th...

Since the last systematic review of Tibetan archaeology in 2004 published in Journal of World Prehistory (Aldenderfer and Zhang 2004), a revival of archaeological research on the plateau has begun to reshape our understanding of key issues such as when the plateau was first permanently occupied by humans, and when and how Tibetans first adopted the...

Here we present an integrated earth surface process and paleoenvironmental study from the Tingri graben and the archaeological site of Su-re, located on the southern rim of the Tibetan plateau, spanning the past ca. 30 ka. The study area is characterized by cold climate earth surface processes and aridity due to its altitude and location in the rai...

A synthetic history of human land use Humans began to leave lasting impacts on Earth's surface starting 10,000 to 8000 years ago. Through a synthetic collaboration with archaeologists around the globe, Stephens et al. compiled a comprehensive picture of the trajectory of human land use worldwide during the Holocene (see the Perspective by Roberts)....

The Fifth Beginning: What Six Million Years of Human History Can Tell Us about Our Future. ROBERT L. KELLY. 2016. University of California Press, Berkeley. xi + 149 pp. $24.95 (hardcover), ISBN 978-0-5202-9312-0. - Mark Aldenderfer

Do recent discoveries accurately define early human settlements at extreme altitudes?

The site of Samdzong is composed of a series of shaft tombs situated at 4000 m altitude in the Himalayas. Recent archaeological expeditions have recovered an exceptional metal assemblage including gold and silver masks, copper vessels, iron daggers, brass bangles and a bronze medallion. The richness and variety of the collection provided an unusual...

Appendix S1: Supplementary Figures

Appendix S1: Supplementary Tables

Quantification has been fundamental to archaeology since its origins. In its simplest operation—counting—quantification allows us to compare and contrast, through time and across space, the numbers and proportions of the materials we encounter in our excavations. To ask more complex questions of these counted data in order to interpret or test hypo...

Objectives Dental calculus is among the richest known sources of ancient DNA in the archaeological record. Although most DNA within calculus is microbial, it has been shown to contain sufficient human DNA for the targeted retrieval of whole mitochondrial genomes. Here, we explore whether calculus is also a viable substrate for whole human genome re...

The peopling of the Andean highlands above 2500 m in elevation was a complex process that included cultural, biological, and genetic adaptations. Here, we present a time series of ancient whole genomes from the Andes of Peru, dating back to 7000 calendar years before the present (BP), and compare them to 42 new genome-wide genetic variation dataset...

The peopling of the Andean highlands above 2500m in elevation was a complex process that included cultural, biological and genetic adaptations. Here we present a time series of ancient whole genomes from the Andes of Peru, dating back to 7,000 calendar years before present (BP), and compare them to 64 new genome-wide genetic variation datasets from...

Dental calculus (calcified dental plaque) is prevalent in archaeological skeletal collections and is a rich source of oral microbiome and host-derived ancient biomolecules. Recently, it has been proposed that dental calculus may provide a more robust environment for DNA preservation than other skeletal remains, but this has not been systematically...

Seeing into Stone: Pre-Buddhist Petroglyphs and Zangskar's Early Inhabitants. By Rob Linrothe . Berlin: Studio Orientalia, 2016. xx, 218 pp., DVD. ISBN: 978819245028 (cloth). - Volume 76 Issue 4 - Mark Aldenderfer

We show that Zhang and Li's sedimentological model for the Chusang travertine neglects the three-dimensional information from multiple outcrops and that their optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) age of about 20,000 years for the human imprints is untenable. We highlight the robustness of our chronology and explore reasons why Zhang and Li's OSL...

Zhang et al. contest that Chusang was part of an annual mobility round that “more likely” included seasonal use of high-elevation environments than permanent use. We show that their probabilistic statement hinges on indefensible claims about hunter-gatherer mobility. In the context of quantitative data from hunter-gatherer ethnography, our travel m...

High-elevation environments above 2500 metres above sea level (m.a.s.l.) were among the planet's last frontiers of human colonization. Research on the speed and tempo of this colonization process is active and holds implications for understanding rates of genetic, physiological and cultural adaptation in our species. Permanent occupation of high-el...

Objectives: This study examines biological indicators of dental disease and nonspecific stress in human remains of three high altitude Himalayan archaeological sites to test whether shared ecological constraints led to similar bioarchaeological profiles in these markers. Methods: Samples (n = 170) derive from three sites in Nepal dating to two p...

The peopling of Tibet The date of the first permanent human occupation of the high Tibetan Plateau has been estimated at about 3600 years ago, when agriculture became established. Meyer et al. used several dating techniques to analyze sediments at a high-altitude site (4270 m) where human handprints and footprints have been found. Their analysis in...

Significance The potato is perhaps the most important of the high Andean crops. Cultivated the length of the Andean cordillera and across disparate ecological zones, it is now also a principal global staple. For this study, we analyzed starch microremains recovered from 14 groundstone tools from Late Archaic to Early Formative period contexts at Ji...

Engineering Mountain Landscapes: An Anthropology of Social Investment. Laura L. Scheiber and Zedeño Maria Nieves , editors. 2015. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. x + 201 pp. $45.00 (paperback), ISBN-978-1-60781-433-7. - Volume 81 Issue 4 - Victor D. Thompson, Mark Aldenderfer

Significance Since prehistory, the Himalayan mountain range has presented a formidable barrier to population migration, whereas at the same time its transverse valleys have long served as conduits for trade and exchange. Yet, despite the economic and cultural importance of Himalayan trade routes, little is known about the region’s peopling and earl...

Scientific Reports 5: Article number: 16498; Published online: 13 November 2015; Updated: 02 June 2016 The Acknowledgements section in this Article is incomplete. “This work was supported by the European Research Council (FP7 ERC-Synergy Nexus1492 project grant number 319209) and the US National Institutes of Health (R01 GM089886), the BBVA Foundat...

This chapter describes human use of the high-elevation valleys of Nepal from 2500 to 1300 years ago, with a focus on recent research at two sites in the Mustang Valley, Mebrak and Samdzong. The human remains and mortuary practice in these caves and shaft tombs provide an opportunity to understand the biological stresses experienced by these high-al...

The first results of textile and dye analyses of cloth remains recovered in Samdzong, Upper Mustang, Nepal, are presented. The site consists of ten shaft tombs, dated between the 400-650 CE, cut into a high cliff face at an elevation of 4000 m asl. The dry climate and high altitude favoured the exceptional preservation of organic materials. One of...

To date, characterization of ancient oral (dental calculus) and gut (coprolite) microbiota has been primarily accomplished through a metataxonomic approach involving targeted amplification of one or more variable regions in the 16S rRNA gene. Specifically, the V3 region (E. coli 341-534) of this gene has been suggested as an excellent candidate for...

Settlement size predicts extreme variation in the rates and magnitudes of many social and ecological processes in human societies. Yet, the factors that drive human settlement-size variation remain poorly understood. Size variation among economically integrated settlements tends to be heavy tailed such that the smallest settlements are extremely co...

This research aims to investigate the potential use of three-dimensional (3D) technologies for the analysis and interpretation of heritage sites. This article uses different 3D survey technologies to find the most appropriate methods to document archaeological stratigraphy, based on diverse environmental conditions, light exposures, and varied surf...

The Tibetan Plateau has one of the least hospitable environments for agriculture on the planet; however, its inhabitants have developed an economic system based on agriculture and pastoralism suited to it’s geoenvironmental stressors. Little is known about the timing of the spread of agriculture onto the plateau or how agricultural systems were ada...

Caves-both natural and created by excavation-are common on the Tibetan plateau. Although the beginnings of cave use on the plateau are currently unknown, caves became especially important with the advent of Buddhism in the seventh century AD. Today, caves continue to be used in both secular and sacred contexts. In this chapter, although my focus is...

Drainage basins adjacent to the upper Tsangpo Valley on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau are pervasively gullied. These gullies expose a stratigraphic record alternating between slow aggradation and stability (i.e. soil development) for much of the Quaternary, suggesting that gullying was recent and unprecedented within at least the past 10-100 ka....

Raymond Williams made a systematic attempt to explore contested and common meanings of these important terms in his book Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976). This book and an updated version of it titled New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society (by Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg...

Recent studies of the genome of modern Tibetans have revealed the existence of genes thought to provide an adaptive advantage for life at high elevation. Extrapolating from this discovery, some researchers now argue that a Tibetan-Han split occurred no more than 2750 yr ago. This date is implausible, and in this paper I review the archaeological da...

Over the past decade, many archaeologists have lamented over the parlous state of what is often labeled the “archaeology of religion.” Although much of the problem with the development of a satisfying approach to the study of religion in the past lies with religion itself, a notoriously difficult concept with a plethora of definitions, archaeologis...

Proxy reconstructions of precipitation from central India, north-central China, and southern Vietnam reveal a series of monsoon droughts during the mid 14th–15th centuries that each lasted for several years to decades. These monsoon megadroughts have no analog during the instrumental period. They occurred in the context of widespread thermal and hy...

Los autores identifican los problemas de investigación del Período Arcaico (10.000-3.400 a.p.) en la zona Centro-Sur de los Andes, para sugerir las prioridades que se deben tomar en cuenta para la realización de futuros estudios arqueológicos en la región. Varios temas arqueológicos aún permanecen inconclusos: (1) Los orígenes de los primeros habit...

Even a moment’s reflection on the daily news informs us of the powerful ability of religion to shape and transform the world in which we live, whether it is a war waged for religious purposes or the deliberations of a local school board. But when it comes to thinking about a more distant past, one in which pronounced social inequalities either did...

Transparent obsidian artifacts have been reported for the northern Lake Titicaca Basin. Based on instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) of these artifacts a distinct chemical group was identified. Yet, the location of the source of transparent obsidian in the southern Andes remained unreported in the archaeological literature. This paper r...

Researchers have argued the modern Altiplano land cover--one of bunch grasses and few indigenous tree species--is an anthropogenic artifact of land use practices initiated after the arrival of Europeans in the sixteenth century a.d. Recent paleoenvironmental studies of the Lake Titicaca Basin challenge this assertion. Archaeological survey and exca...

Migration is a widespread human activity dating back to the origin of our species. Advances in genetic sequencing have greatly increased our ability to track prehistoric and historic population movements and allowed migration to be described both as a biological and socioeconomic process. Presenting the latest research, Causes and Consequences of H...

Although the dramatic differences in cultural complexity between the Pacific littoral cultures and those in the Andean highlands during the Late Preceramic Period have long been known, until recently explanations for them have not been forthcoming. In part, this has been because of shortcomings of empirical data from the highlands as well as a gene...

Artifacts of cold-hammered native gold have been discovered in a secure and undisturbed Terminal Archaic burial context at Jiskairumoko, a multicomponent Late Archaic–Early Formative period site in the southwestern Lake Titicaca basin, Peru. The burial dates to 3776 to 3690 carbon-14 years before the present (2155 to 1936 calendar years B.C.), maki...