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A genetic history of China The history of human movements into and within China has been difficult to determine solely from archaeological investigations or genetic studies of contemporary peoples. Yang et al. sequenced DNA from 26 individuals from 9500 to 300 years ago from locations within China. Analyses of these individuals, along with previously sequenced ancient individuals and present-day genomes representing global populations, show a split between ancient humans in northern and southern China. Neolithic northern Chinese individuals are closest to modern-day East Asians, whereas ancient individuals from southern China are most closely related to modern-day Southeast Asians and show an affinity to modern-day Austronesian populations. These results indicate that there was a southward movement and admixture of peoples during the Neolithic that gave rise to modern-day populations in East Asia. Science this issue p. 282

The Caribbean was one of the last regions of the Americas to be settled by humans, but where they came from and how and when they reached the islands remain unclear. We generated genome-wide data for 93 ancient Caribbean islanders dating between 3200 and 400 calibrated years before the present and found evidence of at least three separate dispersals into the region, including two early dispersals into the Western Caribbean, one of which seems connected to radiation events in North America. This was followed by a later expansion from South America. We also detected genetic differences between the early settlers and the newcomers from South America, with almost no evidence of admixture. Our results add to our understanding of the initial peopling of the Caribbean and the movements of Archaic Age peoples in the Americas., The research was funded by the Max Planck Society and the European Research Council under the 7th Framework Program (grant agreement no. 319209, ERC Synergy Project NEXUS1492). H.S. was supported by the HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area) Joint Research Program “Uses of the Past” (CitiGen) and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no. 649307. W.J.P. and M.A.N.-C. were supported by the National Science Foundation (BCS-0612727 and BCS1622479). C.L.-F. was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (PGC2018-0955931-B-100, AEI/FEDER, UE). M.R. was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (435-2016-0529). M.R., Y.C.d.A., U.M.G.H., and S.T.H.G. were supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (standard research grant SSHRC ‐ 410‐2011‐1179 and SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship ‐ 756‐2016‐0180) and several University of Winnipeg internal grants (Major grant 2017, 2018; Partnership Development grant 2017, 2018; and Discretionary grant 2017, 2018).

What are the full extent and long-term effects of land dispossession and forced migration for Indigenous peoples in North America? We leveraged a new dataset of Indigenous land dispossession and forced migration to statistically compare features of historical tribal lands to present-day tribal lands at the aggregate and individual tribe level. Results show a near-total aggregate reduction of Indigenous land density and spread. Indigenous peoples were forced to lands that are more exposed to climate change risks and hazards and are less likely to lie over valuable subsurface oil and gas resources. Agricultural suitability and federal land proximity results—which affect Indigenous movements, management, and traditional uses—are mixed. These findings have substantial policy implications related to heightened climate vulnerability, extensive land reduction, and diminished land value.

The lives of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean are some of the most enigmatic in modern history. Historical documents note facts such as the number of enslaved people who lived on different plantations, their genders and ages, and their places of origin. But the records reveal almost nothing about the daily lives of the enslaved. Archaeologists are now excavating plantations, including the sugar-producing Estate Little Princess on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, to reconstruct the experiences of enslaved Africans forced to live and work there. Humble artifacts including buttons, cooked bones, and shards of pots and porcelain are vital clues to how enslaved Africans maintained their individuality and humanity within a system designed to strip them of both. And by studying the vegetation, water systems, and other environmental features of plantations, these archaeologists are also documenting how slavery literally reshaped the islands—and the world.

This summer, a small team of archaeologists, guides, and observers trekked into the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in southern Mexico in search of a lost city. Called Sac Balam, or "the white jaguar," it was founded more than 400 years ago by the Lacandon Maya, one of several Indigenous groups in southern Mexico and Central America who resisted Spanish colonial rule for centuries. Until 1695, that is, when the Spanish finally found the city. Less than 20 years later, they forcibly relocated its inhabitants and abandoned the place once and for all. It faded off colonial maps and back into the forest. If found, Sac Balam could offer archaeologists an unparalleled time capsule of Lacandon culture, showing how they preserved their independence as the world changed around them.

To the older generation of the Paiter Surui, the COVID-19 pandemic looks familiar The Indigenous people who inhabit the border of the Brazilian states of Rondonia and Mato Grosso suffered hundreds of deaths from measles and other infectious diseases in the decades after they first made contact with non-Indigenous people in 1969 The survivors “already experienced what is happening in the world today with the coronavirus,” says Rubens Naraikoe Surui, a young Indigenous leader Now, as the number of coronavirus cases ramps up in Brazil, the Pater Surui and other Indigenous people worry that they could be hard hit So far, 16 members of such groups are known to have had COVID-19 infections, and three have died: a 15-year-old Yanomami boy, a 78-year-old Tikuna man, and a 44-year-old Kokama woman

India9s complex geologic history has endowed it with rich and diverse fossils, from early plants through dinosaurs to human ancestors. But the country9s paleontologists say their field is in trouble. With few legal protections, sites often fall victim to looting and development. And although funds are scarce for all science in India, the plight of paleontology is particularly acute. Little money is available for excavations and for acquiring and curating specimens, and the country lacks a national institution in which its natural heritage can be studied and preserved. Cash-strapped universities are curtailing or axing paleontology courses, and young people are shunning the field.

About 90 million years ago, an unusual shark cruised the shallow sea covering what is now Vallecillo, in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon. After the animal died, conditions on the sea floor were just right to preserve its soft tissue and long, winglike fins. Described last month in Science, the shark, named Aquilolamna milarcae, made headlines around the world for its surprising similarities to today9s plankton-eating manta rays. But for some paleontologists, the publication—by a team of mostly European scientists—also raises thorny questions about the role of private collections in their field and lingering scientific colonialism. The paper originally said the specimen was purchased by a collector, which is illegal under Mexican law. And a public museum founded by the collector, where the fossil was said to be accessible for study by other researchers, is not scheduled to open until later this year. Science published an Erratum last week, indicating the current location of the fossil. The controversy over A. milarcae comes at a moment when some paleontologists are pushing to eliminate the remnants of colonial practices, an issue that inflames the debate over the paper. In Mexico, paleontologists say the paper has served as a wake-up call.

Dogs were the first animals ever domesticated, yet researchers have argued for decades over when, where, and how they arose. Now, the most comprehensive comparison of ancient human and canine DNA suggests dogs were domesticated about 23,000 years ago in ice age Siberia. The people who domesticated them—known as the ancient north Siberians—were trapped in northeastern Siberia for millennia because the harsh climate of the time prevented them from traveling too far east or west. They were stuck here with the gray wolf, the direct ancestor of today9s dogs. Scientists speculate that the two forged a relationship over time, leading to the domestication of the dog. Thousands of years later, these Siberians would give some of their pups to the distant ancestors of Native Americans, who would eventually bring them to the Americas. Other ancient humans, traveling west, would bring them deeper into Asia and Europe, where they would proliferate around the world.

In Jim Downs9s account of the roots of modern epidemiology, soldiers as well as washerwomen, hospital attendants, the enslaved, Muslim pilgrims, and others like them take center stage. "[M]any modern epidemiological practices grew in part out of observing, treating, and preventing disease among captive populations produced by colonialism, slavery, and war," Downs writes. For those of us looking warily toward future epidemics, this book draws our attention to oft-forgotten sources of medical knowledge.

In a study published in Nature, researchers analyzed ancient DNA from coprolites, or preserved feces, found at the back of rock shelters in Utah and Mexico. The data give scientists their first good look at ancient gut bacterial communities. They suggest that over the past millennium, the human gut has experienced an "extinction event," losing dozens of species and becoming significantly less diverse. The findings also suggest we9ve lost a lot of our microbial helpers in the recent past, and our bodies may not have had time to adapt to the change—potentially increasing the risk for metabolic disease, allergies, and diabetes. The work also raised ethical questions about the use of samples from Indigenous people.

In Four Lost Cities, Annalee Newitz—a technology journalist and author of popular genre fiction—has unexpectedly turned their attention to the archaeology of the urban past.

The aurochs was the wild ancestor of modern cattle. With large horns and great strength, it inspired awe and fear until it went extinct in 1627. After a failed attempt to resurrect the aurochs in the 1930s, a new generation of biologists has been trying to back-breed a replica by combining traits from various heritage cattle. They hope that analysis of ancient DNA from fossilized aurochs will help guide and speed up the process. Already they are establishing herds of aurochslike cattle in various countries as part of an ambitious effort to rewild abandoned farmland and nature reserves in Europe.

Why, unlike other primates, did our ancestors begin to walk upright? What factors enabled Homo erectus to develop new cultural practices and, later, to give rise to our own species? As paleoanthropologist Meave Leakey explains in The Sediments of Time, understanding climate change is key in answering such questions. Reflecting on 50 years of research, largely at field sites around Lake Turkana in Kenya9s Great Rift Valley, the book—co-written with Leakey9s daughter Samira Leakey—is an engaging memoir in which fieldwork adventures appear alongside dense details of Ice Age cycles, ice core technology, fossil anatomy, and geological research.

Human Evolution The settlement of the Caribbean and genetic relationships among pre-European Caribbean people remain a mystery. After examining 93 ancient genomes dating to a range from about 3200 to 400 years ago, Nagele et al. suggest that at least three separate colonization events, including a previously unknown wave, were connected to radiation events in North America. The two more ancient lineages coexisted in Cuba but were fully separate genetically, with later movement into the region from a third group from South America. The study not only informs on the settlement of the Caribbean but also lends insights into the broader-scale intercontinental radiation of humans across the American landscape, including across substantial water boundaries. Science , this issue p. [456][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aba8697

Human Evolution The history of human movements into and within China has been difficult to determine solely from archaeological investigations or genetic studies of contemporary peoples. Yang et al. sequenced DNA from 26 individuals from 9500 to 300 years ago from locations within China. Analyses of these individuals, along with previously sequenced ancient individuals and present-day genomes representing global populations, show a split between ancient humans in northern and southern China. Neolithic northern Chinese individuals are closest to modern-day East Asians, whereas ancient individuals from southern China are most closely related to modern-day Southeast Asians and show an affinity to modern-day Austronesian populations. These results indicate that there was a southward movement and admixture of peoples during the Neolithic that gave rise to modern-day populations in East Asia. Science this issue p. [282][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aba0909

By about 1200 C.E., Polynesians were masters of oceanic exploration, roaming 7000 kilometers across the Pacific Ocean in outrigger canoes to reach and settle islands from New Zealand to Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, the closest Polynesian island to South America. So it9s natural to wonder: Did these world-class explorers make it the last 3800 kilometers to South America? A genomic study of more than 800 modern Polynesians and Native Americans suggests they did. The work strengthens earlier evidence that somewhere—perhaps on the northern coast of South America—the two groups met and mixed well before the era of European colonialism. And it shakes up the most popular model of where Native American genes first took root in Polynesia, shifting the focus from Rapa Nui to islands farther west.

For those of us who travel for a living, the COVID-19 crisis carries extra bite. Books such as Gina Rae La Cerva9s Feasting Wild offer a balm of sorts, transporting the reader out of lockdown and into a world of little-known and endangered flavors on the margins of where human society rubs against wild ecosystems.

Paleontology Although there are many primate lineages in the Old World, it is thought that the New World is home to just one group, the platyrrhine monkeys, which appear to have colonized the region during the Eocene. Seiffert et al. describe a new primate species on the basis of fossil molars found in the Peruvian Amazon that appears to belong to the Parapithecidae, a group of stem anthropoid primates best known from northern Africa (see the Perspective by Godinot). The fossils appear to be from a well-differentiated lineage, suggesting that this species had been evolving within South America for some time. It is likely that the ancestors of this new species arrived via a transatlantic rafting event when sea levels dropped at the Eocene–Oligocene transition ∼32 to 35 million years ago. Science , this issue p. [194][1]; see also p. [136][2] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aba1135 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.abb4107

A high-stakes game of battleship helped turn the tide in World War II's Battle of the Atlantic