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What a submerged ancient bridge discovered in a Spanish cave reveals about early human settlement
Led by a USF geologist, a team of researchers examined a submerged 25-foot bridge to tackle a long-lasting archaeological controversy: When humans settled on the islands in the western Mediterranean. Their findings narrow a historical gap between the settlement timelines of the eastern and western Mediterranean regions.
TAMPA, Fla. (Aug. 27, 2024) – A new study led by the University of South Florida has shed light on the human colonization of the western Mediterranean, revealing that humans settled there much earlier than previously believed. This research, detailed in a recent issue of the journal, Communications Earth & Environment, challenges long-held assumptions and narrows the gap between the settlement timelines of islands throughout the Mediterranean region.
Reconstructing early human colonization on Mediterranean islands is challenging due to limited archaeological evidence. By studying a 25-foot submerged bridge, an interdisciplinary research team – led by USF geology Professor Bogdan Onac – was able to provide compelling evidence of earlier human activity inside Genovesa Cave, located in the Spanish island of Mallorca.
"The presence of this submerged bridge and other artifacts indicates a sophisticated level of activity, implying that early settlers recognized the cave's water resources and strategically built infrastructure to navigate it,” Onac said.
The cave, located near Mallorca’s coast, has passages now flooded due to rising sea levels, with distinct calcite encrustations forming during periods of high sea level. These formations, along with a light-colored band on the submerged bridge, serve as proxies for precisely tracking historical sea-level changes and dating the bridge's construction.
Mallorca, despite being the sixth largest island in the Mediterranean, was among the last to be colonized. Previous research suggested human presence as far back as 9,000 years, but inconsistencies and poor preservation of the radiocarbon dated material, such as nearby bones and pottery, led to doubts about these findings. Newer studies have used charcoal, ash and bones found on the island to create a timeline of human settlement about 4,400 years ago. This aligns the timeline of human presence with significant environmental events, such as the extinction of the goat-antelope genus Myotragus balearicus.
By analyzing overgrowths of minerals on the bridge and the elevation of a coloration band on the bridge, Onac and the team discovered the bridge was constructed nearly 6,000 years ago, more than two-thousand years older than the previous estimation – narrowing the timeline gap between eastern and western Mediterranean settlements.
“This research underscores the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in uncovering historical truths and advancing our understanding of human history,” Onac said.
This study was supported by several National Science Foundation grants and involved extensive fieldwork, including underwater exploration and precise dating techniques. Onac will continue exploring cave systems, some of which have deposits that formed millions of years ago, so he can identify preindustrial sea levels and examine the impact of modern greenhouse warming on sea-level rise.
This research was done in collaboration with Harvard University, the University of New Mexico and the University of Balearic Islands.
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About the University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, a high-impact research university dedicated to student success and committed to community engagement, generates an annual economic impact of more than $6 billion. With campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee, USF serves approximately 50,000 students who represent nearly 150 different countries. U.S. News & World Report has ranked USF as one of the nation’s top 50 public universities for five consecutive years, and this year USF earned its highest ranking ever among all universities public or private. In 2023, USF became the first public university in Florida in nearly 40 years to be invited to join the Association of American Universities, a prestigious group of the leading universities in the United States and Canada. Through hundreds of millions of dollars in research activity each year and as one of the top universities in the world for securing new patents, USF is a leader in solving global problems and improving lives. USF is a member of the American Athletic Conference. Learn more at www.usf.edu.
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Understanding how cells process nutrients and produce energy - collectively known as metabolism - is essential in biology. However, analyzing the vast amounts of data on cellular processes to determine metabolic states is a complex task.
Modern biology generates large datasets on various cellular activities. These "omics" datasets provide insights into different cellular functions, such as gene activity and protein levels. However, integrating and making sense of these datasets to understand cell metabolism is challenging.
Kinetic models offer a way to decode this complexity by providing mathematical representations of cellular metabolism. ...
Women in China are now healthier than ever, but as the economy grows and China’s culture becomes more westernised, the country faces new challenges due to changing social norms and expectations, say experts in a special collection of articles published by The BMJ today.
In nine articles spanning topics and conditions across women’s life courses, experts from China analyse the current state of women’s health; review achievements and remaining challenges in the contexts of women’s empowerment and rights, labour force participation, and family and community dynamics; and make recommendations ...
CAMBRDIGE, MA – In order to train more powerful large language models, researchers use vast dataset collections that blend diverse data from thousands of web sources.
But as these datasets are combined and recombined into multiple collections, important information about their origins and restrictions on how they can be used are often lost or confounded in the shuffle.
Not only does this raise legal and ethical concerns, it can also damage a model’s performance. For instance, if a dataset is miscategorized, someone training a machine-learning model for a certain task may end up unwittingly using data that are not designed for that task.
In addition, data from unknown sources ...
London, UK, 30 August 2024: Updated ESC Guidelines on the management of elevated blood pressure and hypertension include a new elevated blood pressure category, more ambitious and intensive treatment targets, and, for the first time, recommendations on the use of renal denervation to treat various forms of hypertension. The Guidelines have been produced by an international panel of experts that include co-Chairpersons Professor Bill McEvoy of the University of Galway, Ireland, and Professor Rhian Touyz of McGill University, Canada.
Elevated blood pressure and hypertension are by far the most common and important risk ...
London, UK, 30 August 2024: The 2024 ESC Guidelines for the management of peripheral arterial and aortic diseases (PAAD) evaluate these vascular diseases together as part of same cardiovascular system, appreciating that patients with aortic diseases are at risk of having peripheral vascular diseases and vice versa. The Guidelines are aimed at cardiologists, but were coordinated for alignment with guidelines for surgeons by EACTS and endorsed by VASCERN and ESVM.
“These updated guidelines have been introduced now due to significant advancements and shifts in our understanding and management of aortic and peripheral ...
London, UK, 30 August 2024: The 2024 ESC Guidelines on the management of chronic coronary syndromes (CCS) include a focus on both larger and smaller blood vessels of the heart; new models to estimate chances of blocked large arteries (so-called obstructive coronary artery disease); optimal selection and sequence of tests; drugs and interventions to prevent disease complications and improve symptoms, and the fundamental role of patient involvement.
“The new guidelines prompt cardiologists to rethink chronic coronary syndromes ...
London, UK, 30 August 2024: The 2024 ESC Guidelines for the management of atrial fibrillation, developed in collaboration with the European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS), contain a number of new approaches and treatment-specific recommendations to help manage the surging numbers of patients with AF worldwide.
“Atrial fibrillation (AF) is one of the most commonly encountered heart conditions, with a broad impact on all health services across primary, secondary and tertiary care,” says Guidelines Chair Professor Isabelle C. Van Gelder, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. “The prevalence ...
London, United Kingdom – 30 August 2024: The ESC Clinical Consensus Statement on Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease, presented at this year’s ESC Congress (London, UK, 30 August to 2 September) summarises current evidence on the epidemiology and aetiology of obesity; the interplay between obesity, cardiovascular risk factors and cardiac conditions; the clinical management of patients with cardiac disease and obesity; and weight loss strategies including lifestyle changes, interventional procedures, and anti-obesity medications with particular focus ...
About The Study: In patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction, treatment with prehospital pulse-dose glucocorticoid did not reduce final infarct size after 3 months. However, the trial was likely underpowered as the final infarct size was smaller than anticipated. The glucocorticoid group had improved acute parameters compared with placebo.
Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jasmine Melissa Madsen, MD, email jasmine.melissa.madsen.01@regionh.dk.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2024.2298)
Editor’s ...
About The Study: In this post hoc pooled analysis of 13,194 patients with chronic heart failure (HF) in the PARADIGM-HF and PARAGON-HF randomized clinical trials, sacubitril/valsartan significantly reduced hospitalization for any reason, with benefits most apparent in patients with a left ventricular ejection fraction below normal. This reduction appeared to be principally driven by lower rates of cardiac and pulmonary hospitalizations.
Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Muthiah Vaduganathan, MD, MPH, email mvaduganathan@bwh.harvard.edu.
To ...
