Ancient DNA reveals monozygotic newborn twins from the Upper Palaeolithic

Abstract

The Upper Palaeolithic double burial of newborns and the single burial of a ca. 3-month-old infant uncovered at the Gravettian site of Krems-Wachtberg, Austria, are of paramount importance given the rarity of immature human remains from this time. Genome-wide ancient DNA shows that the male infants of the double grave are the earliest reported case of monozygotic twins, while the single grave´s individual was their 3rd-degree male relative. We assessed the individuals´ age at death by applying histological and µCT inspection of the maxillary second incisors (i2) in conjunction with C- and N-isotope ratios and Barium (Ba) intake as biomarker for breastfeeding. The results show that the twins were full-term newborns, and that while individual 2 died at birth, individual 1 survived for about 50 days. The findings show that Gravettian mortuary behaviour also included re-opening of a grave and manipulation of its layout and content.

An infant burial from Arma Veirana in northwestern Italy provides insights into funerary practices and female personhood in early Mesolithic Europe

“…Biological profiles including exact age-at-death and sex are thus unavailable in nearly all cases. A pair of neonates dated to 27,000 cal BP at the Gravettian site of Krems-Wachtberg 34 is an important exception, shown to comprise male monozygotic twins by the analysis of ancient DNA 35 . However, a < 6 week old DNA-confirmed female infant interred with grave goods from Upper Sun River in Eastern Beringea (11,500 cal BP) illustrates that mortuary treatment of baby girls similar to that observed at Arma Veirana characterized terminal Pleistocene cultures elsewhere 36 , 37 .…”

Using archaeological data and sediment parameters to review the formation of the Gravettian layers at Krems‐Wachtberg

“…1A) was excavated from 2005 to 2015 and post‐excavation analyses have continued since. It has provided significant contributions to our understanding of early anatomically modern humans with the discovery of two infant burials (Einwögerer et al ., 2006), one of which is a double burial of monozygotic twins (Teschler‐Nicola et al ., 2020), and exposure of the exceptionally well‐preserved remains of a ~31k cal a bp occupation surface with evident anthropogenic structures such as hearths and pits, together with the mentioned burials and a wealth of artefactual and archaeofaunal material (Simon et al ., 2014; Händel et al ., 2015). Furthermore, its embedding in a > 8 m sequence of loess sediments subdivided into 40 geological horizons (GH) or 10 units with overall 79 subunits ( cf .…”

A 23,000-year-old southern Iberian individual links human groups that lived in Western Europe before and after the Last Glacial Maximum

“…We merged the newly reported ancient data with data from the Allen Ancient DNA Resource (v.37.2; https://reich.hms.harvard.edu) plus the newly published data from refs. 24,27,28,38 . We generated two datasets,…”