SummaryThe archaeological documentation of the development of sedentary farming societies in Anatolia is not yet mirrored by a genetic understanding of the human populations involved, in contrast to the spread of farming in Europe [1, 2, 3]. Sedentary farming communities emerged in parts of the Fertile Crescent during the tenth millennium and early ninth millennium calibrated (cal) BC and had appeared in central Anatolia by 8300 cal BC [4]. Farming spread into west Anatolia by the early seventh millennium cal BC and quasi-synchronously into Europe, although the timing and process of this movement remain unclear. Using genome sequence data that we generated from nine central Anatolian Neolithic individuals, we studied the transition period from early Aceramic (Pre-Pottery) to the later Pottery Neolithic, when farming expanded west of the Fertile Crescent. We find that genetic diversity in the earliest farmers was conspicuously low, on a par with European foraging groups. With the advent of the Pottery Neolithic, genetic variation within societies reached levels later found in early European farmers. Our results confirm that the earliest Neolithic central Anatolians belonged to the same gene pool as the first Neolithic migrants spreading into Europe. Further, genetic affinities between later Anatolian farmers and fourth to third millennium BC Chalcolithic south Europeans suggest an additional wave of Anatolian migrants, after the initial Neolithic spread but before the Yamnaya-related migrations. We propose that the earliest farming societies demographically resembled foragers and that only after regional gene flow and rising heterogeneity did the farming population expansions into Europe occur.

No abstract

Mesiodistally directed grooves have been observed on the occlusal surfaces of nine incisors of five females in a small skeletal population from Kovuklukaya (Sinop, northern Anatolia, 10 th century AD). There is no archaeological evidence to explain the cultural practices that must have caused such unusual abrasions of the anterior dentition. Investigations of the geographical characteristics of the region and data gathered on the traditional lifestyles of Ç ulhalı inhabitants enables us to reach meaningful conclusions about the Kovuklukaya people. According to the direction of the grooves, ecological characteristics of the region, and ethnographic data, it is proposed that the unusual abrasion observed in the Kovuklukaya population may be linked to passing yarn between the anterior teeth to wet it. The grooves in the Kovuklukaya population were found only in female skeletons, indicating the existence of a sex-based division of labour in yarn production.

In this study, the skeleton of an approximately 15-year-old child, dating back to the Late Byzantine period (13th century AD) is examined with the aim of determining where this specimen fits in the continuing arguments on the origins of syphilis. It was unearthed during an excavation at an amphitheatre in Nicaea dating to the Roman period. The Nicaea specimen displays common symptoms found in the majority of people with congenital syphilis such as Hutchinson's incisor, mulberry molar, darkened enamel, radial scar on frontal bone, sabre tibia, syphilitic dactylitis, and gummatous and non-gummatous osteomyelitis on almost every post-cranial bone. Because of the sub-periosteal new bone formation, the medullary spaces in some long bones are narrowed or completely obliterated. These lesions, which were observed via macroscopic and radiological examination, reflect the late stages of congenital syphilis. The specimen, when examined together with increasing numbers of other finds from the Old World, contributes to the argument that venereal syphilis did exist in the Old World before 1493, and brings forward the need to revise the Columbian hypothesis, which maintains that syphilis is a new disease carried to the Old World from the New World by Columbus' crew.

The incisors and canines and the premolars and molars show differential resistance to cariogenic factors. The anterior teeth have a lower caries frequency than the posterior teeth. However, these tooth classes are lost differentially in postmortem stages due to their anatomical structures. This differential postmortem tooth loss distorts proportions between the anterior and posterior tooth classes. The disproportionality can affect the calculation of total caries prevalence. In this paper, we propose a new calibration procedure which removes this disproportionality and call it the proportional correction factor. For this procedure, the caries rates of anterior and posterior teeth are corrected by multiplying the anterior teeth by three-eighths and the posterior teeth by five-eighths. These fractions are derived from the human dental formula which contains three anterior and five posterior teeth by side. The correction factor is more effective if the proportion of anterior to the posterior teeth is extremely distorted. When this procedure is used with the caries correction factor, it provides a useful way to approach to an almost true caries prevalence.