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Incollection Reference The polder area of Raversijde (Oostende, Belgium): a complex parent material affected by intense human interventions. Archaeology as a tool in geopedology
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference The Population History of Domestic Sheep Revealed by Paleogenomes
Sheep was one of the first domesticated animals in Neolithic West Eurasia. The zooarchaeological record suggests that domestication first took place in Southwest Asia, although much remains unresolved about the precise location(s) and timing(s) of earliest domestication, or the post-domestication history of sheep. Here, we present 24 new partial sheep paleogenomes, including a 13,000-year-old Epipaleolithic Central Anatolian wild sheep, as well as 14 domestic sheep from Neolithic Anatolia, two from Neolithic Iran, two from Neolithic Iberia, three from Neolithic France, and one each from Late Neolithic/Bronze Age Baltic and South Russia, in addition to five present-day Central Anatolian Mouflons and two present-day Cyprian Mouflons. We find that Neolithic European, as well as domestic sheep breeds, are genetically closer to the Anatolian Epipaleolithic sheep and the present-day Anatolian and Cyprian Mouflon than to the Iranian Mouflon. This supports a Central Anatolian source for domestication, presenting strong evidence for a domestication event in SW Asia outside the Fertile Crescent, although we cannot rule out multiple domestication events also within the Neolithic Fertile Crescent. We further find evidence for multiple admixture and replacement events, including one that parallels the Pontic Steppe-related ancestry expansion in Europe, as well as a post-Bronze Age event that appears to have further spread Asia-related alleles across global sheep breeds. Our findings mark the dynamism of past domestic sheep populations in their potential for dispersal and admixture, sometimes being paralleled by their shepherds and in other cases not.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023
Article Reference Octet Stream The position of the Nazlet Khater specimen among prehistoric and modern African and Levantine populations
The morphometric affinities of the 33,000 year old skeleton from Nazlet Khater, Upper Egypt are examined using multivariate statistical procedures. In the first part, principal components analysis is performed on a dataset of mandible dimensions of 220 fossils, sub-fossils and modern specimens, ranging in time from the Late Pleistocene to recent and restricted in space to the African continent and Southern Levant. In the second part, mean measurements for various prehistoric and modern African and Levantine populations are incorporated in the statistical analysis. Subsequently, differences between male and female means are examined for some of the modern and prehistoric populations. The results indicate a strong association between some of the sub-Saharan Middle Stone Age (MSA) specimens, and the Nazlet Khater mandible. Furthermore, the results suggest that variability between African populations during the Neolithic and Protohistoric periods was more pronounced than the range of variability observed among recent African and Levantine populations. Results also demonstrate a general reduction in the degree of sexual dimorphism during the Holocene. However, this pattern of reduction pattern varies by geographic location and is not uniform across the African continent.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Inproceedings Reference The potential of geological storage of CO2 in Austria: a techno-economic assessment
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Inproceedings Reference The predictive value of dental microwear in the assessment of caprine diet
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference The pretarsus of the honeybee
Located in Associated publications / Belgian Journal of Zoology / Bibliographic References
Article Reference The proposed dropping of the genus Crassostrea for all Pacific cupped oysters and its replacement by a new genus Magallana: a dissenting view
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2017
Article Reference Octet Stream The raiding success of Pheidole megacephala on other ants in both its native and introduced ranges
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference The Rapid Spread of Early Farming from the Aegean into the Balkans via the Sub-Mediterranean-Aegean Vegetation Zone
Close examination of the geographic position of Early Neolithic settlements in SE-Europe shows that the oldest sites are almost exclusively situated in some very specific biogeographic areas. These earliest Neolithic settlements are all concentrated in a region that Pavle Cikovac calls the Sub-Mediterranean-Aegean biogeographic region. It covers the northern and north-western edge of the Aegean, including Thessaly, Greek Macedonia and Greek Thrace, and extends further into the Balkans, but only along the valleys rivers of the Vardar (Axios), Struma (Strymon) and Mesta (Nestos) rivers. Surprisingly, although Thrace is the closest landscape to Anatolia, it does not contain any sites of the earliest phase of the Neolithic at all beyond the narrow zone of the northern Marmara. In the present paper we explain this remarkable situation in terms of the natural environment in this particular region of the southern Balkans. To begin, we propose that the lack of oldest Early Neolithic settlements in Thrace is related to the extreme microclimate of this region. As shown by modern vegetation analogues, Thracian oriental hornbeam-downy oak forests are exposed to stronger continental influence with frosts in the winter and average temperatures during the coldest months that are ca. 2-3 °C lower than those in the Central Balkans that have Sub-Mediterranean vegetation. In general terms, what we may expect is that the earliest Neolithic groups would first appear in regions with similarly mild conditions, on a yearly average, to those in the Mediterranean. Such mild conditions are indeed present in the Sub-Mediterranean biogeographic region. On the other hand, before moving further to the north along the north-south oriented river systems of the Central Balkans, the Neolithic economy based on agriculture and stockbreeding would first have to be adapted to the relatively harsh winters in the Balkans. In consequence, it would have been possible to apply the new Neolithic lifestyle in the neighbouring areas of Thrace, Walachia, Dobrudža and the Carpathian Basin only after a certain period of adaptation. Available 14C-data show that the adaptation period is identical to the time-span of Rapid Climate Change (RCC: 6550-6050 calBC) as defined in previous studies.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2017
Article Reference The recent Tripterotyphis (Gastropoda: Muricidae: Tripterotyphinae) from the eastern Pacific with the description of two new species
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2021