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The Amazon witnessed the emergence of complex societies after 2500 years ago that altered tropical landscapes through intensive agriculture and managed aquatic systems. However, very little is known about the context and conditions that preceded these social and environmental transformations. Here, we demonstrate that forest islands in the Llanos de Moxos of southwestern Amazonia contain human burials and represent the earliest settlements in the region between 10,600 and 4000 years ago. These archaeological sites and their contents represent the earliest evidence of communities that experienced conditions conducive to engaging with food production such as environmental stability, resource disturbance, and increased territoriality in the Amazonian tropical lowlands. Archaeological research indicates that hunter-gatherers altered landscapes in southwestern Amazonia as early as 10,000 years ago.

J. Kr., A.M. and C.P. are grateful for support from DFG grant number KR 4015/1-1, the Carl-Zeiss Foundation and the Baden Württemberg Foundation. S. P., G. R., Q. F., C. F., K. P., S.C. and J.Ke. acknowledge support from the Presidential Innovation Fund of the Max Planck Society. G.R. was supported by an NSERC fellowship. J.G.S. acknowledges use of the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), which is supported by NSF grant number OCI-1053575. E.B. and O.B. were supported by RFBR grants 13-06-00670, 13-04-01711, 13-04-90420. B.M. was supported by grants OTKA 73430 and 103983. A.Saj. was supported by a Finnish Professor Pool (Paulo Foundation) Grant. The Lithuanian sampling was supported by the LITGEN project (VP1-3.1-ŠMM-07-K-01-013), funded by the European Social Fund under the Global Grant Measure. A.S. was supported by Spanish grants SAF2011-26983 and EM 2012/045. O.U. was supported by Ukrainian SFFS grant F53.4/071. S.A.T. was supported by NIH Pioneer Award 8DP1ES022577-04 and NSF HOMINID award BCS-0827436. K.T. was supported by an Indian CSIR Network Project (GENESIS: BSC0121). L.S. was supported by an Indian CSIR Bhatnagar Fellowship. R.V., M.M., J.P. and E.M. were supported by the European Union Regional Development Fund through the Centre of Excellence in Genomics to the Estonian Biocentre and University of Tartu and by an Estonian Basic Research grant SF0270177As08. M.M. was additionally supported by Estonian Science Foundation grant number 8973. J.G.S. and M.S. were supported by NIH grant GM40282. P.H.S. and E.E.E. were supported by NIH grants HG004120 and HG002385. D.R. and N.P. were supported by NSF HOMINID award BCS-1032255 and NIH grant GM100233. This project has been funded in part with federal funds from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, under contract HHSN26120080001E. This Research was supported in part by the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, National Cancer Institute, Center for Cancer Research We sequenced the genomes of a ∼7,000-year-old farmer from Germany and eight ∼8,000-year-old hunter-gatherers from Luxembourg and Sweden. We analysed these and other ancient genomes with 2,345 contemporary humans to show that most present-day Europeans derive from at least three highly differentiated populations: west European hunter-gatherers, who contributed ancestry to all Europeans but not to Near Easterners; ancient north Eurasians related to Upper Palaeolithic Siberians, who contributed to both Europeans and Near Easterners; and early European farmers, who were mainly of Near Eastern origin but also harboured west European hunter-gatherer related ancestry. We model these populations' deep relationships and show that early European farmers had ∼44% ancestry from a 'basal Eurasian' population that split before the diversification of other non-African lineages.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, the Central Andes has experienced significant climatic and environmental changes characterized by a persistent warming trend, an increase in elevation of the 0 °C isotherm, and sustained glacier shrinkage. These changes have occurred in conjunction with a steadily growing demand for water resources. Given the short span of instrumental hydroclimatic records in this region, longer time span records are needed to understand the nature of climate variability and to improve the predictability of precipitation, a key factor modulating the socio-economic development in the South American Altiplano and adjacent arid lowlands. In this study we present the first quasi-millennial, tree-ring based precipitation reconstruction for the South American Altiplano. This annual (November-October) precipitation reconstruction is based on the Polylepis tarapacana tree-ring width series and represents the closest dendroclimatological record to the Equator in South America. This high-resolution reconstruction covers the past 707 yr and provides a unique record characterizing the occurrence of extreme events and consistent oscillations in precipitation. It also allows an assessment of the spatial and temporal stabilities of the teleconnections between rainfall in the Altiplano and hemispheric forcings such as El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Since the 1930s to present, a persistent negative trend in precipitation has been recorded in the reconstruction, with the three driest years since 1300 AD occurring in the last 70 yr. Throughout the 707 yr, the reconstruction contains a clear ENSO-like pattern at interannual to multidecadal time scales, which determines inter-hemispheric linkages between our reconstruction and other precipitation sensitive records modulated by ENSO in North America. Our reconstruction points out that century-scale dry periods are a recurrent feature in the Altiplano climate, and that the future potential coupling of natural and anthropogenic-induced droughts may have a severe impact on socio-economic activities in the region. Water resource managers must anticipate these changes in order to adapt to future climate change, reduce vulnerability and provide water equitably to all users. Fil: Morales, Mariano Santos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales; Argentina Fil: Christie, D. A.. Universidad Austral de Chile; Chile Fil: Villalba, Ricardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales; Argentina Fil: Argollo, J.. Universidad Mayor de San Andrés; Bolivia Fil: Pacajes, J.. Universidad Mayor de San Andrés; Bolivia Fil: Silva, J. S.. Universidad Austral de Chile; Chile Fil: Alvarez, C. A.. Universidad Austral de Chile; Chile. University of Colorado; Estados Unidos Fil: Llancabure, J. C.. Universidad Austral de Chile; Chile Fil: Soliz Gamboa, C. C.. University of Utrecht; Países Bajos

Los paisajes representan un punto dinámico de articulación entre los seres humanos y el ambiente físico. Mientras que a veces se presentan como opuestos, los grupos humanos son participantes activos en el ambiente y frecuentemente cumplen un papel muy importante en su transformación a través del tiempo. En este artículo se usan estudios arqueológicos del oeste de Sudamérica y de Australia para ilustrar la importancia de investigar interacciones, a largo plazo, entre los grupos humanos y el medio ambiente. Estas investigaciones pueden ofrecer una mayor profundidad en el conocimiento histórico al cambio ambiental y asimismo precisar el rol que han jugado los grupos humanos en modificar trayectorias particulares en la evolución del paisaje y de biodiversidad de las especies. Los grupos humanos constituyen un elemento crítico en el cambio ambiental y, en conjunto, nuestros resultados tienen fuertes implicancias para temas relacionados con sostenibilidad y la gestión efectiva de los recursos desérticos de nuestro planeta. Landscapes represent a dynamic point of articulation between humans and the environment. While often dichotomized, humans are active participants in the environment and often play a pivotal role in its transformation over time. In this paper, we use case studies from western South America and Australia to illustrate the importance of studying long-term dynamics between humans and the environment. Such investigations can bring significant historical depth to environmental change and the role humans have played in altering courses of landscape evolution and species biodiversity. Humans comprise a critical element in environmental change, and collectively, our results hold strong implications for issues related to sustainability and effective management of our planet’s desert resources. Fil: Zaro, Gregory. University of Maine; Estados Unidos Fil: Builth, Heather. Monash University; Australia Fil: Rivera, Claudia. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo. Instituto de Geociencias y Medio Ambiente; Argentina Fil: Roldán, Jimena. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste; Argentina Fil: Suvires, Graciela Mabel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan. Centro de Investigaciones de la Geosfera y Biosfera. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones de la Geosfera y Biosfera; Argentina

The high frequency of late prehistoric New World treponemal disease is attributable to the demographic changes concomitant with the adoption of agriculture. However, these demographic changes in group mobility and site density episodically preceded intensive plant domestication, suggesting possible staggered temporal change in observed treponemal disease case frequency. Thirteen convincing and an additional two probable (N = 581) cases of treponemal disease were identified in an eight-site skeletal sample spanning the Middle (6,000-3,000 BCE) to Late (2,500-ca. 1,000 to 500 BCE) Archaic and Early Woodland (500 BCE-0 CE) periods from the western Tennessee River Valley. Treponemal disease cases are infrequent in both the Middle (3/115, 2.6%) and Late (2 to 4 cases,