Because of differences in craniofacial morphology and dentition between the earliest American skeletons and modern Native Americans, separate origins have been postulated for them, despite genetic evidence to the contrary. We describe a near-complete human skeleton with an intact cranium and preserved DNA found with extinct fauna in a submerged cave on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. This skeleton dates to between 13,000 and 12,000 calendar years ago and has Paleoamerican craniofacial characteristics and a Beringian-derived mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup (D1). Thus, the differences between Paleoamericans and Native Americans probably resulted from in situ evolution rather than separate ancestry.

No abstract

This PDF file includes: Methods: Collection and Processing SOM Text Figs. DR1 to DR7 Tables DR1 to DR3 References Methods: Core Collection and Processing The cores were collected using an underwater pneumatic hammer attached by airhoses to a tending compressor at the surface and operated by divers below (Fig. DR1). Once drilled, the cores were capped and removed using airlift bags. After collection, each core was photographed, described, and sampled at 1 cm intervals (unless sediment character required larger intervals), and subsampled for granulometry, micropaleontological analysis, and dating (Figs. DR2-DR6, Table DR1 and DR2). Chronological ages were based on (depending on availability in core) ceramics, OSL, and C14 (Tables DR1 and DR2). Granulometry was completed using Laser particle Analyzers (on a Beckman laser Coulter counter and Malvern Multisizer). Values from Malvern Multisizer varied from Beckman by a maximum of +/-1%. Micropaleontological collection, analysis, and statistics were based on the methods of Fishbein and Patterson (1).

Waters from the Atlantic Ocean washed southward across parts of Anegada, east-northeast of Puerto Rico, during a singular event a few centuries ago. The overwash, after crossing a fringing coral reef and 1.5 km of shallow subtidal flats, cut dozens of breaches through sandy beach ridges, deposited a sheet of sand and shell capped with lime mud, and created inland fields of cobbles and boulders. Most of the breaches extend tens to hundreds of meters perpendicular to a 2-km stretch of Anegada's windward shore. Remnants of the breached ridges stand 3 m above modern sea level, and ridges seaward of the breaches rise 2.2-3.0 m high. The overwash probably exceeded those heights when cutting the breaches by overtopping and incision of the beach ridges. Much of the sand-and-shell sheet contains pink bioclastic sand that resembles, in grain size and composition, the sand of the breached ridges. This sand extends as much as 1.5 km to the south of the breached This article is intended for tsunami-geology issue of Natural Hazards edited by Ioan Nistor: inistor@uottawa.ca. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article

Figure 1. Location map showing harbor ruins and excavation sites outside of harbor (W4: 677079, 3598186; W6: 677100, 3598300; W7: 677045, 3598318). Insets show regional tectonic framework of eastern Mediterranean (bottom left) and layout of Herod's harbor (upper right). ABSTRACTUnderwater geoarchaeological excavations on the shallow shelf (ϳ10 m depth) at Caesarea, Israel, have documented a tsunami that struck and damaged the ancient harbor at Caesarea. Talmudic sources record a tsunami that struck on 13 December A.D. 115, impacting Caesarea and Yavne. The tsunami was probably triggered by an earthquake that destroyed Antioch, and was generated somewhere on the Cyprian Arc fault system. The tsunami deposit consisted of an ϳ0.5-m-thick bed of reverse-graded shells, coarse sand, pebbles, and pottery deposited over a large area outside of the harbor. The lower portion of the deposit was composed of angular shell fragments, and the upper portion of whole convex-up Glycymeris spp. shells. The sequence records tsunami downcutting (ϳ1 m) into shelf sands, with the return flow sorting and depositing angular shell fragments followed by oriented whole shells. Radiocarbon dating of articulated Glycymeris shells, and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates, constrain the age of the deposit to between the first century B.C. and the second century A.D., and point to the tsunami of A.D. 115 as the most likely candidate for the event, and the probable cause of the harbor destruction.