Volcano Driven Famine Brought Black Plague Bearing Fleas In Grain Shipments To Europe In 1347

Volcanic eruptions in 1345 CE, lead to crop failures from 1345 to 1347 in the Mediterranean. This led Italians to import grain from Mongols near the sea of Azov region (currently between Ukraine and Russia) in 1347, where a black plague infestation was already present, spreading the plague to Europe. The black plague then ran rampant across Europe from 1347 to 1353 killing an immense share of the population of Europe (up to 60% of some towns and villages). 

Several years of famine also probably weakened the immune systems of most Europeans, impairing their ability to fight to black plague bacteria and making its lethality rate greater.

This black plague pandemic actually started in "the arid foothills of the Tien Shan mountains west of Lake Issyk-Kul in modern-day Kyrgyzstan" in 1338, but it took nine more years for it to reach Europe. While the volcano induced famines in Europe sped its spread, arguably its eventual arrival in Europe, sooner or later, was almost inevitable.

Human history is pockmarked with periods of death and destruction on unimaginable scales. Of these calamitous epochs, one stands out: The Black Death. The mid 14th century scourge killed tens of millions of people in Europe, Asia, and Africa and changed the course of history—marking the tail end of the Middle Ages and ushering in the cultural reawakening of the Renaissance by disrupting society, the feudal system, and economies across the continent. 

Researchers have long known the Black Death’s central villain: the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which caused the bubonic plague that swept through towns and villages with a mortality rate of up to 60 percent. Experts also know this microbial agent was spread by fleas, borne on the backs of rodent pests and maybe domestic animals, and passed between humans through the air and bodily fluids. But historians have had a tougher time recreating the sequence of events that initially started the devastating pandemic. 

Now, a pair of scientists have found new clues hidden in tree rings. By looking at these rings in the Spanish Pyrenees—as well as details in historical accounts of the time—they suggest that heightened volcanic activity sometime around 1345 may have sparked a famine, kicking off the sequence of events that eventually led to the Black Death raging through Eurasia from 1347 and 1353. They published their findings today in Communications Earth & Environment. . . . 

Here is the model Bauch and his colleague Ulf Büntgen, a dendrochronologist at Cambridge University, propose. As yet unknown volcanic eruptions ejected huge amounts of ash and gases into the atmosphere around 1345, causing drops in annual temperatures that persisted for several years. The cross sections from living and relic trees that the researchers studied had “blue rings,” denoting abnormally cold and wet summer growth seasons, in 1345, 1346, and 1347. Additional accounts from the time considered by Bauch and Büntgen tell of abnormal cloudiness and dark lunar eclipses, further hints of volcanic activity. This sustained cooling could have caused widespread crop failure across the Mediterranean. 

The resulting food shortages drove merchants in the maritime republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa to increase imports of grain from the Mongols living around the sea of Azov in 1347. Along with shipments of grain coursing across established trade routes came plague-infested fleas. Once Y. pestis and the fleas that carried it landed in Europe, the pathogen jumped to rats, mice, and perhaps domesticated animals. Eventually the disease hopped to humans, and people began transmitting it in densely packed population centers. The rest is a dark part of history. 

“For more than a century, these powerful Italian city states had established long-distance trade routes across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, allowing them to activate a highly efficient system to prevent starvation,” said Bauch. “But ultimately, these would inadvertently lead to a far bigger catastrophe.” 

From a Facebook post by Nautilus Magazine. 

The introduction to the published paper states:

Recent advances in paleogenetic research now demonstrate that the Black Death was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which is likely to persist in different forms in natural reservoirs, including wildlife rodent populations. Investigations of great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus) populations in Kazakhstan, for instance, have outlined how the bacterium can be transmitted from one mammalian host to another by hematophagous insect vectors, such as fleas. The zoonotic disease, however, only occasionally spills over to domestic mammals and humans, and so far three pandemics have been documented: The Justinianic plague from circa 541 to the second half of the 8th century CE; the second pandemic starting around 1338 CE in central Asia and later outbreaks in the Mediterranean region and Europe until the early 19th century CE; and the third plague pandemic that had its origin in the 1770s in China and is arguably still prevalent in endemic rodent populations in different parts of the world.

A combination of archaeological, historical and ancient genomic data proposes that the causal agent of the second plague pandemic most likely originated from the arid foothills of the Tien Shan mountains west of Lake Issyk-Kul in modern-day Kyrgyzstan. A genetically distinct strain of the bacterium was then transmitted along ancient trade routes and entered Europe via the northern Black Sea region in the early 1340s. While changes in long-distance maritime grain trade have been introduced as a possible explanation for the import of plague-infected fleas to Venice and other Mediterranean harbour towns in 1347 CE, this chain of arguments excludes alternative transmission pathways, such as human-to-human infection or the transport of rodents and goods. Intriguingly, the role climatic changes and associated environmental factors may have played in the onset and establishment of the Black Death remains controversial amongst scholars from the natural and social sciences and the humanities.

Despite an ever-growing understanding of the evolution, origin and transmission of Yersinia pestis during the second plague pandemic, it is still unclear if the bacterium was frequently re-introduced into Europe or if natural reservoirs of the bacterium ever existed there. Recent insights into plague ecology include aspects of prolonged flea survival without human and/or rodent hosts but feeding opportunities on grain dust during long-term food shipments. Empirical evidence from around 1900 CE may therefore be considered as a possible explanation of how Yersinia pestis could have arrived in medieval Italy. While there is so far no convincing argument to pre-date the beginning of the second plague pandemic into the 13th century CE, changes in socio-economic structures, political institutions and trade networks since the second half of the 13th century possibly impacted the course of the second plague pandemic.

Here, we show that interdisciplinary investigations into the entanglements between weather, climate, ecology and society well before the Black Death are essential to understand the exceptional level of spread and virulence that made the first wave of the second plague pandemic so deadly. Based on annually resolved and absolutely dated reconstructions of volcanically forced cooling, transregional famine, and changes in long-distance maritime grain trade from 1345–1347 CE, we argue that the onset of the Black Death most likely resulted from a complex interplay of natural and societal factors and processes. Although this unique spatiotemporal coincidence of many influences seems rare, our findings emphasise the increased likelihood of zoonotic infectious diseases to suddenly emerge and rapidly translate into pandemics in both, a globalised and warmer world with COVID-19 just being the latest warning sign.

The Long Term Impacts Of Islamic Occupation In Iberia

This paper makes that case that developing a merchant class in the Middle Ages was critical to the development of literacy and self-government, and that Islamic rule discouraged this from happening for different lengths of time in different parts of Iberia (basically on a north to south gradient).

We use a unique dataset on Muslim domination between 711-1492 and literacy in 1860 for about 7500 municipalities to study the long-run impact of Islam on human-capital in historical Spain. 

Reduced-form estimates show a large and robust negative relationship between length of Muslim rule and literacy. 

We argue that, contrary to local arrangements set up by Christians, Islamic institutions discouraged the rise of the merchant class, blocking local forms of self-government and thereby persistently hindering demand for education. Indeed, results show that a longer Muslim domination in Spain is negatively related to the share of merchants, whereas neither later episodes of trade nor differences in jurisdictions and different stages of the Reconquista affect our main results. Consistent with our interpretation, panel estimates show that cities under Muslim rule missed-out on the critical juncture to establish self-government institutions.

Francesco Cinnirella, Alieza Naghavi, and Giovanni Prarolo, "Islam and human capital in historical Spain" 28 Journal of Economic Growth 225-257 (January 3, 2023).

Diet Drives Height

Individual variation in height, like individual variation in IQ, is strongly influenced by genetics. But, population level variations in height (between populations or over time) is profoundly influenced by environment, rather than genetic legacies. There is a good case to be made that the same is true of IQ.

This paradox is also seen, for example, in modern Japan and South Korea where height is closely correlated with year of birth, with children born later in more economically prosperous times with less food scarcity ending up taller.

This also provides a food production counterpart to the "coal curse" by which regions with particularly great coal resources lagged in later economic development as the natural resource based economy fostered by rich coal resources prevented other forms of economic production from thriving, which mattered when coal became less economically important.

In the late nineteenth century, the North American bison was brought to the brink of extinction in just over a decade. We demonstrate that the loss of the bison had immediate, negative consequences for the Native Americans who relied on them and ultimately resulted in a permanent reversal of fortunes. Once amongst the tallest people in the world, the generations of bison-reliant people born after the slaughter lost their entire height advantage. By the early twentieth century, child mortality was 16 percentage points higher and the probability of reporting an occupation 29.7 percentage points lower in bison nations compared to nations that were never reliant on the bison. Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century and into the present, income per capita has remained 28 percent lower, on average, for bison nations. This persistent gap cannot be explained by differences in agricultural productivity, self-governance, or application of the Dawes Act. We provide evidence that this historical shock altered the dynamic path of development for formerly bison-reliant nations. We demonstrate that limited access to credit constrained the ability of bison nations to adjust through re-specialization and migration.

Donn. L. Feir, Rob Gillezeau & Maggie E.C. Jones, "The Slaughter of the Bison and Reversal of Fortunes on the Great Plains" NBER Working Paper 30368 (August 2022), DOI 10.3386/w30368

The Economics of Empires

A new paper makes very simple argument, not only for the rise of empires, but for why in other circumstances we see Balkanization.

I've never heard it made before, it is quite a decent fit to the historical data, and it makes good logical sense.

Also, while the model is trained on the last two centuries, it isn't very challenging to generalize it to the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic Empire, the Venetian Empire, early European colonialism back to the 1500s, and the pre-Columbian empires of the Americas.

I don't know the parts of West Asian, African, Chinese, or South Asian history relevant to this hypothesis well enough to evaluate its fit to empires in either of those places, however.

The last two centuries witnessed the rise and fall of empires. We construct a model which rationalises this in terms of the changing trade gains from empires. 

In the model, empires are arrangements that reduce trade cost between an industrial metropole and the agricultural periphery. During early industrialisation, the value of such bilateral trade increases, and so does the value of empires. As industrialisation diffuses, and as manufactures become more differentiated, trade becomes more multilateral and intra-industry, reducing the value of empires. 

Our results are consistent with long-term changes in income distribution and trade patterns, and with previous historical arguments.

From an NBER working paper (2022) by Roberto Bonfatti and Kerem Coşar.

Post-script: NBER is a U.S. economic research organization. Why is the paper using British spelling conventions?

What Causes Patriarchy?

Alice Evans, in her blog post "3 Things I Got Wrong About Patriarchy" (June 26, 2022), concludes (convincingly) that:

(1) Patriarchy in a society with plough agriculture arises not mostly due to the importance of men's physical labor relative to women, but instead, as a result of how patrilineal inheritance is used to concentrate wealth and power in a society, to encourage clan-like organization, and to create a need to resolve conflicts between men living in close clan communities over women.

(2) Christian Europe has been surprisingly egalitarian because Christian doctrine was actually followed in the Middle Ages and because rich nobles would use church morals rules against patriarchy as a bludgeon against rivals to prevent them from concentrating power and wealth. Christianity reduced patriarchy relative to many of its immediate predecessor societies in Europe.

(3) Islam promoted patriarchy, when other economic conditions made it feasible, even when the economic and technological conditions didn't compel a patriarchy outcome that wasn't present before a conversion to Islam. But oil wealth didn't change the pre-oil discovery level of patriarchy in an Islamic society very much as many scholars had hypothesized.

She reaches these conclusions, that are not conventional wisdom in anthropology and economics, by looking at more data over longer time periods, with greater detail than other scholars doing the same kind of analysis usually do. 

She was also willing to discount her own cognitive biases, for example, that religion was less important than economics in these matters.

Potatoes For Peace

Introducing potatoes from the New World reduced conflict in Old World societies that received them.

This paper provides evidence of the long-run effects of a permanent increase in agricultural productivity on conflict. We construct a newly digitized and geo-referenced dataset of battles in Europe, the Near East, and North Africa from 1400–1900 ce and examine variation in agricultural productivity due to the introduction of potatoes from the Americas to the Old World after the Columbian Exchange. We find that the introduction of potatoes led to a sizeable and permanent reduction in conflict.

Murat Iyigun, Joris Mueller, Nathan Nunn, Nancy Qian, "The Long-Run Effects of Agricultural Productivity on Conflict, 1400–1900" (November 24, 2020).

Filipino Ancestry And Four Historic Native American Subpopulations In Mexico

Native American genetic ancestry in Mexico is derived from three known ancestral genetic populations (west-central, Nahua, and Mayan) and a fourth "ghost population" originating in Sonora.

Researchers were also able to characterize a Filipino ancestry component derived from the historically attested 17th century Manila Galleon trade between the colonial Spanish Philippines and the Pacific port of Acapulco in Spanish Mexico which has not previously been identified as a contributor to Mexican ancestry. The body text notes that:

In order to pinpoint the origin of the Asian component in Mexico, a MAAS-MDS was performed with a reference panel of East Asian, Southeast Asian and Oceanian populations. Cosmopolitan Mexicans having more than 5% combined East Asian and Melanesian ancestry were included, resulting in one individual from Sonora, one from Oaxaca, one from Yucatan and twelve from Guerrero. 

Sonora and Yucatan grouped near Chinese reference populations; Oaxaca clustered broadly with maritime Southeast Asia; while Guerrero showed a heterogeneous profile. No cosmopolitan Mexican sample showed Melanesian variation; therefore, the MAAS-MDS plot was zoomed into, excluding populations with Melanesian contributions, for visibility. Most individuals from Guerrero clustered with maritime Southeast Asia, except for one individual positioned near southern China. Individuals from Guerrero resemble western Indonesian and non-Negrito Filipino populations, specifically those from Sumatra, Mindanao, Visayas and Luzon. Admixture dating of these Asian haplotypes in Guerrero using Tracts fit a single pulse admixture model at 13 generations ago, or in 1620 CE using 30 years per generation. . . .

This coincides with the Manila Galleon slave trade during the colony, which had a period of activity from 1565 to 1679 CE. This slave trade route originated after the need for additional labor arose due to the demographic collapse of the native populations, and ended when these Asian slaves, mostly residing in Spanish colonial Asia, were actively declared indigenous vassals of the crown and thus free. At that time the Atlantic slave trade from Africa became predominant over the Pacific route. This Southeast Asian component from the Manila Galleon trade could have extended to neighboring coastal Pacific areas of southern Mexico, as could be the case of the individual from Oaxaca. 

Moreover, although historical records report the residence of “Chinos” predominantly in Guerrero, smaller numbers are also recorded in places such as Colima, Guadalajara, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, Veracruz, Puebla, Toluca and, in particular, Mexico City. Thus, we do not rule out the presence of this component in the other populations from the study due to insufficient sampling or statistical power, as well as locations not considered in this study.

On the other hand, East Asian ancestry in Sonora and Yucatan, both distant locations from Guerrero, could possibly represent post-colonial migration events, such as Chinese immigration, mainly from the Guangdong Province, into northern Mexico and the immigration of Korean henequen workers into the Yucatan Peninsula, both occurring during and after the Porfiriato Period (between 1880 and 1910 CE). However, more extensive sampling across the country is needed to shed light on these genetic signals in order to associate them with these post-colonial historical events.

The discussion section of the paper is unusually multidisciplinary and thoughtful. Reads the whole thing. 

The paper and its abstract are as follows:

Mexico has considerable population substructure due to pre-Columbian diversity and subsequent variation in admixture levels from trans-oceanic migrations, primarily from Europe and Africa, but also, to a lesser extent, from Asia. Detailed analyses exploring sub-continental structure remain limited and post-Columbian demographic dynamics within Mexico have not been inferred with genomic data. We analyze the distribution of ancestry tracts to infer the timing and number of pulses of admixture in ten regions across Mexico, observing older admixture timings in the first colonial cities and more recent timings moving outward into southern and southeastern Mexico. 

We characterize the specific origin of the heterogeneous Native American ancestry in Mexico: a widespread western-central Native Mesoamerican component in northern Aridoamerican states and a central-eastern Nahua contribution in Guerrero (southern Mexico) and Veracruz to its north. Yucatan shows lowland Mayan ancestry, while Sonora exhibits a unique northwestern native Mexican ancestry matching no sampled reference, each consistent with localized indigenous cultures. 

Finally, in Acapulco, Guerrero a notable proportion of East Asian ancestry was observed, an understudied heritage in Mexico. We identified the source of this ancestry within Southeast Asia—specifically western Indonesian and non-Negrito Filipino—and dated its arrival to approximately thirteen generations ago (1620 CE). This points to a genetic legacy from the 17th century Manila Galleon trade between the colonial Spanish Philippines and the Pacific port of Acapulco in Spanish Mexico. Although this piece of the colonial Spanish trade route from China to Europe appears in historical records, it has been largely ignored as a source of genetic ancestry in Mexico, neglected due to slavery, assimilation as “Indios” and incomplete historical records.

Juan Esteban Rodríguez-Rodríguez, "Admixture dynamics in colonial Mexico and the genetic legacy of the Manila Galleon" bioRxiv (October 16, 2021) (open access). 

doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.09.463780

The Legacy Of Herding

The Legacy Of Herding

Historical food productions practices influence culture and morality long after those food production practices are long gone.

According to the widely known ‘culture of honor’ hypothesis from social psychology, traditional herding practices are believed to have generated a value system that is conducive to revenge-taking and violence. 

We test this idea at a global scale using a combination of ethnographic records, historical folklore information, global data on contemporary conflict events, and large-scale surveys. 

The data show systematic links between traditional herding practices and a culture of honor. First, the culture of pre-industrial societies that relied on animal herding emphasizes violence, punishment, and revenge-taking. Second, contemporary ethnolinguistic groups that historically subsisted more strongly on herding have more frequent and severe conflict today. Third, the contemporary descendants of herders report being more willing to take revenge and punish unfair behavior in the globally representative Global Preferences Survey. In all, the evidence supports the idea that this form of economic subsistence generated a functional psychology that has persisted until today and plays a role in shaping conflict across the globe.

Yiming Cao, et al., "Herding, Warfare, and a Culture of Honor" NBER (September 2021).

Another paper fleshes out the concept a bit more (and has a nice literature review), although its description of the southern United States as historically a herding culture is doubtful. Appalachia was indeed settled by Scotch-Irish herders and does have a culture of honor, but, the lowlands of the American South (which also has a culture of honor), where plantation farming became predominant, was settled by lesser English gentry farmers, not by descendants of herders.

A key element of cultures of honor is that men in these cultures are prepared to protect with violence the reputation for strength and toughness. Such cultures are likely to develop where (1) a man's resources can be thieved in full by other men and (2) the governing body is weak and thus cannot prevent or punish theft. 

Todd K. Shackelford, "An Evolutionary Psychological Perspective on Cultures of Honor" Evolutionary Psychology (January 1, 2005) (open access). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/147470490500300126

The example of the Southern United States suggests that a weak state may be as important a factor in the development of a culture of honor as a herding economy.

The Legacy Of Plough v. Hoe Farming

Parallel hypotheses from the same disciplines associate ancestral heavy plough farming with strongly patriarchal societies with strong differentiation in gender roles, and ancestral hoe farming with less patriarchal and sometimes even matrilineal societies.

The Legacy Of Clan Based Societies

It has also become common in modern political theory to associate weak government approaching anarchy with clan based societies in which women are forced into highly subordinated roles, somewhat in the tradition of Thomas Hobbes ("nasty, brutish and short") as opposed to those who idealize an Eden-like "state of nature." See, e.g., Valerie M. Hudson, et al., "Clan Governance and State Stability: The Relationship between Female Subordination and Political Order" 109(3) American Political Science Review 535-555 (August 2015).

The Legacy Of Cousin Marriage

Also along the same lines, cousin marriage (often common in clan based societies and also among feudal aristocrats) tends to be a practice the undermines democratic government:

Image from here.

How might consanguinity affect democracy? 

Cousin marriages create extended families that are much more closely related than is the case where such marriages are not practiced. To illustrate, if a man’s daughter marries his brother’s son, the latter is then not only his nephew but also his son-in-law, and any children born of that union are more genetically similar to the two grandfathers than would be the case with non-consanguineous marriages. Following the principles of kin selection (Hamilton, 1964) and genetic similarity theory (Rushton, 1989, 2005), the high level of genetic similarity creates extended families with exceptionally close bonds. Kurtz succinctly illustrates this idea in his description of Middle Eastern educational practices:

If, for example, a child shows a special aptitude in school, his siblings might willingly sacrifice their personal chances for advancement simply to support his education. Yet once that child becomes a professional, his income will help to support his siblings, while his prestige will enhance their marriage prospects. (Kurtz, 2002, p. 37).

Such kin groupings may be extremely nepotistic and distrusting of non-family members in the larger society. In this context, non-democratic regimes emerge as a consequence of individuals turning to reliable kinship groupings for support rather than to the state or the free market. It has been found, for example, that societies having high levels of familism tend to have low levels of generalized trust and civic engagement (Realo, Allik, & Greenfield, 2008), two important correlates of democracy. Moreover, to people in closely related kin groups, individualism and the recognition of individual rights, which are part of the cultural idiom of democracy, are perceived as strange and counterintuitive ideological abstractions (Sailer, 2004).

From the body text of the following article whose abstract is also set forth below: 

This article examines the hypothesis that although the level of democracy in a society is a complex phenomenon involving many antecedents, consanguinity (marriage and subsequent mating between second cousins or closer relatives) is an important though often overlooked predictor of it. Measures of the two variables correlate substantially in a sample of 70 nations (r = −0.632, p < 0.001), and consanguinity remains a significant predictor of democracy in multiple regression and path analyses involving several additional independent variables. 

The data suggest that where consanguineous kinship networks are numerically predominant and have been made to share a common statehood, democracy is unlikely to develop. 

Possible explanations for these findings include the idea that restricted gene flow arising from consanguineous marriage facilitates a rigid collectivism that is inimical to individualism and the recognition of individual rights, which are key elements of the democratic ethos. Furthermore, high levels of within-group genetic similarity may discourage cooperation between different large-scale kin groupings sharing the same nation, inhibiting democracy. Finally, genetic similarity stemming from consanguinity may encourage resource predation by members of socially elite kinship networks as an inclusive fitness enhancing behavior.

Michael A. Woodley, Edward Bell, "Consanguinity as a Major Predictor of Levels of Democracy: A Study of 70 Nations" 44(2) Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (2013). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022112443855

Evidence Of Agriculture In The Amazon Ca. 1500 BCE

Some of the least well understood prehistoric cultures of the Americas are the sedentary food producing cultures of the Amazon river basin in South America, much of which is marsh and jungle now, and some of which was transformed into a savanna landscape when European cattle ranchers cleared the forest for this purpose. 

This farming and fish farming culture existed from at least 1500 BCE to 300 CE in the region.

The University of Central Florida's press release regarding a new paper notes that:

[P]re-Columbian people of a culturally diverse but not well-documented area of the Amazon in South America significantly altered their landscape thousands of years earlier than previously thought. . . . [There is] evidence of people using fire and improving their landscape for farming and fishing more than 3,500 years ago. This counters the often-held notion of a pristine Amazon during pre-Columbian times before the arrival of Europeans in the late 1400s. The study . . . also provides mores clues to the past of the diverse, but not well-documented, cultures that live in the area known as the Llanos de Mojos in northeastern Bolivia.

"This region has one the highest diversity of languages in the world, which reflects distinct ways of life and cultural heritage," says study co-author John Walker, an associate professor in UCF's Department of Anthropology. "We know something about the last 3,000 to 4,000 years of, say Europe or the Mediterranean, but we don't have some of that same information for the people here. That makes this an incredible story waiting to be written.". . . 

The flat, wetland landscape of the Llanos de Mojos is used for cattle ranching today, but archaeologists have noted for years the evidence from remnants of pre-Columbian raised fields and fish weirs for aquaculture. These remnants indicated the land was once used instead for farming and fishing. The archaeologists just didn't know when or how far back in time these activities started -- until now.

Previous research pointed to a date of about 300 C.E., or about 1,700 years ago. However, the new study combined expertise from multiple disciplines, such as anthropology, paleoethnobotany and paleoecology, to indicate that intensive land management started much earlier, at about 1,500 B.C.E, or about 3,500 years ago.

"This finding is important because it provides evidence that the Amazon is not a pristine wilderness but has been shaped and designed by indigenous people thousands of years before the Spanish arrived," Walker says.

This is new information for both the history of the cultures of the Amazon, which have not been studied as much as other cases, like the Mayas or Incas, and for the area, which is often thought of as an untouched world before the arrival of the Spanish.

Neil Duncan, the study's lead author . . . extracted two, five-foot long cores of earth from two locations about 13 miles apart in the Llanos de Mojos. By examining these cores, Duncan found corn and squash phytoliths dating as early as 1380 B.C.E and 650 B.C.E, or about 3,000 years ago. Phytoliths are microscopic silica particles from plant tissue, and the findings suggest these were crops grown in the numerous raised fields that dot the area. . . .

Both cores showed similar trends of initial dry conditions in the oldest layers of earth, followed by increased wet conditions and increased use of wood burning, as evidenced by the presence of high diatom concentrations and charcoal concentrations, respectively. The researchers say wood burning could be for cooking, pottery, warmth and more. . . .

"The intensification of plant, fire and water management occurred at the same time, which emphasizes how farming or fishing were equally important to the people of the region," . . .

Also of note is that the shifts in the two cores to more intensive land management happened at different periods, the researchers say.

One core, known as the Mercedes core, showed the shift to wetter conditions and increased fire use starting at 1,500 B.C.E, or about 3,500 years ago. The other, extracted from a location about 13 miles farther south and known as the Quinato-Miraflores core, showed the shift occurring at about 70 B.C.E., or about 2,100 years ago.

Since broadscale climate changes would have affected both areas at the same time, the time difference between the two cores suggests humans were purposefully engineering the land, including draining water in some areas, retaining it in others, and using trees for fuel.

"So, what's happening in the landscape is that that it's becoming wetter, and we think that some of those trees are being flooded out and so they're not as well represented," Duncan says. "And if things are getting wetter then we shouldn't see more charcoal. So, the interpretation is that we would only see these high amounts of charcoal if it's humans doing some very intentional and intensive burning."

The paper and its abstracts are as follows:

Significance

The Chavín, Moche, Tiwanaku, and Inka are well-known pre-Columbian cultures, but during the same time, in the southwestern Amazon, people were transforming a 100,000-km2 landscape over thousands of years. The extent of earthworks in the Llanos de Mojos has become clear since the 1960s, but dating these features has been difficult. We show that pre-Columbian people used hydrological engineering and fire to maximize aquatic and terrestrial resources beginning at least 3,500 years ago. 

In the 17th century CE, cattle and new technologies brought by Jesuit missions altered the form and function of these landscapes. 

The scale and antiquity of these Amazonian earthworks demand comparison with domesticated landscapes and civilizations from around the world.

Abstract

In landscapes that support economic and cultural activities, human communities actively manage environments and environmental change at a variety of spatial scales that complicate the effects of continental-scale climate. 

Here, we demonstrate how hydrological conditions were modified by humans against the backdrop of Holocene climate change in southwestern Amazonia. 

Paleoecological investigations (phytoliths, charcoal, pollen, diatoms) of two sediment cores extracted from within the same permanent wetland, ∼22 km apart, show a 1,500-y difference in when the intensification of land use and management occurred, including raised field agriculture, fire regime, and agroforestry. Although rising precipitation is well known during the mid to late Holocene, human actions manipulated climate-driven hydrological changes on the landscape, revealing differing histories of human landscape domestication. 

Environmental factors are unable to account for local differences without the mediation of human communities that transformed the region to its current savanna/forest/wetland mosaic beginning at least 3,500 y ago. Regional environmental variables did not drive the choices made by farmers and fishers, who shaped these local contexts to better manage resource extraction. 

The savannas we observe today were created in the post-European period, where their fire regime and structural diversity were shaped by cattle ranching.

Neil A. Duncan, et al., "Pre-Columbian fire management and control of climate-driven floodwaters over 3,500 years in southwestern Amazonia" PNAS (June 7, 2021).

Cultural Traits Discernible From Folklore Are Enduring And Relevant

While folklore and legendary history are generally not literally true accounts of the past, viewed properly, they shed light on the culture that created them in ways that have enduring relevance in the societies that have preserved it.

Folklore is the collection of traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community passed through the generations by word of mouth. We introduce to economics a unique catalogue of oral traditions spanning approximately 1,000 societies. 

After validating the catalogue’s content by showing that the groups’ motifs reflect known geographic and social attributes, we present two sets of applications. 

First, we illustrate how to fill in the gaps and expand upon a group’s ethnographic record, focusing on political complexity, high gods, and trade. 

Second, we discuss how machine learning and human-classification methods can help shed light on cultural traits, using gender roles, attitudes towards risk, and trust as examples. Societies with tales portraying men as dominant and women as submissive tend to relegate their women to subordinate positions in their communities, both historically and today. More risk-averse and less entrepreneurial people grew up listening to stories where competitions and challenges are more likely to be harmful than beneficial. Communities with low tolerance towards antisocial behavior, captured by the prevalence of tricksters getting punished, are more trusting and prosperous today. 

These patterns hold across groups, countries, and second-generation immigrants. Overall, the results highlight the significance of folklore in cultural economics, calling for additional applications.

Stelios Michalopoulos & Melanie Meng Xue, "Folklore" Quarterly Journal of Economics, forthcoming.

Long Distance Obsidian Trade In Pre-Columbian North America

I knew that there were long distance economic links in pre-Columbian America, but I was not aware that it extended to the fruits of hard rock mining.  

On the Scioto River south of Columbus, Ohio, archaeologists identified 300 pounds of Yellowstone obsidian in mounds built by the Hopewell people 2,000 years ago. It’s possible the obsidian was traded there by intermediaries, but MacDonald and some other archaeologists believe that groups of Hopewell made the 4,000-mile round trip, by foot and canoe, to bring back the precious stone.

Via John Hawks blog. 

About Newton

Everyone remembers Newton for his contributions to physics. 

But he made much of his fortune as the director of London's mint, making coins, and investing in businesses, after he got sick of being a professor at Cambridge, where he felt tormented as a Unitarian in a Trinitarian institution.

Fishing Is Like Farming

The first sedentary complex societies, which arose before domestication made farming and herding possible, were societies based upon food production through fishing. They had more in common with the farmers that would come to be than with terrestrial hunter-gatherers.

The linked article explores one such indigenous society based upon an ethnographic account of a 16th century kingdom in a fishing society in what is now Florida.

Iberian Bell Beaker Artifacts And Other Out Of Place Artifacts In Poland

Bell Beaker blogger reports on the discovery of distinctively Iberian Bell Beaker artifacts, including distinctively Southwest Iberian style objects and a fragmented West Iberian Chalcolithic slate plaque. A naive anthropologist seeing the artifacts without being told their context would have assumed that they originated somewhere to the Southwest of Madrid, although a more careful analysis of all of the artifacts would have resulted in confusion. 

The find is remarkable, because these artifacts were found not in Iberia, but in a cremation style grave in Suprasl in northeast Poland, dated to 5,110 ± 35 cal years BP (95.4% confidence interval 3,976–3,799 cal BCE). At the time of this grave, the region was not even a part of a peripheral area where there was previous evidence of influences from an actual Bell Beaker cultural area.

This newly discovered Copper Age archaeological site in Northeast Poland has a mix of local, innovative and remote artifact styles that are out of place of this time and place which was then inhabited by European hunter-gatherers. Its location, which while inland has access to a river network to the sea, and the eclectic mix of artifacts and practices found there, along with innovations found nowhere else, suggests that its founders had roots in the heartland of the Atlantic Maritime Bell Beaker culture. This site was probably one of the farthest frontier outposts of a far flung Bell Beaker trading network that was predominantly maritime in character, but also had connections to some terrestrial trade routes in different parts of Europe, both local and distant from this outpost.

1. Location of Suprasl archaeological site (yellow star); 2 physicogeographical border of the West and East of Europe; 3 range of the Neman Cultural Circle; 4 range of the Bell Beaker phenomenon (4a culture, 4b peripheries).

The prevailing archaeological culture in the region at the time was a European hunter-gatherer culture called the Neman cultural circle, in a place where repeated efforts to transition to farming and herding didn't take, and while herding replaced hunting and gathering there soon enough (with the last hunter-gatherers gone by 1000 CE), farming wasn't well established there until the 20th century of the common era. This late adoption of food production modes involving domesticated plants and animals was presumably because the local climate was ill adapted to a package of domesticated plants and animals developed original in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. 

The Neman Cultural Circle cultural background of the region is described by the authors as follows in the body text of the paper that Bell Beaker blogger reviews:

The area of modern north-eastern Poland, which consists of the Masurian Lake District and the North Podlachian Lowland, was still dominated by hunter-gatherer societies of the Neman Cultural Circle (NCC) in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. In the Early Bronze Age they became apart of the Trzciniec cultural circle, which formed at that time. It is difficult to find a reason why these groups changed their cultural profile. The recurrent attempts to populate this region in the Neolithic, made by farming and pastoral communities, did not bring substantial changes in the traditional economic and social structure of the autochthonic populations which would be visible in archaeological material. Archaeological discoveries from the Masurian Lake District were the first to shed some light on the transformation of these local groups into Early Bronze Age societies. 

However, the absence of evidence necessary for conclusive identification of ‘West European immigrants’ in north-eastern Poland was a major cognitive dissonance. This big area delivered only isolated small fragments of vessels with zone-metopic decoration, which were identified with the influence of the Iwno culture (IC)– a group with a marked BB component. 

The situation changed only when features with artefacts characteristic of BB were discovered at site 3 in Supraśl in north Podlachia. The artefacts from that site can be regarded as critical for discussion of BB in northeastern Poland. It is even more interesting that up to that moment the frontier of the northeastern ecumene of this cultural phenomenon was marked by discoveries from areas previously populated by agricultural societies. 

This makes the find remarkable and paradigm modifying because the diffusion of Bell Beaker style cultural artifacts is usually assumed to have involved serial cultural transmission infused with local influences at each step, causing Bell Beaker artifacts from the epicenter of the phenomena in Southwest Iberia to become more and more different from those at the source with overland distance, particularly because if these fragile ceramic objects were actually made in Iberia and then transported by sea, they would still have had to have been transported by land and river over a substantial distance inland to the most eastern area where Bell Beaker artifacts have ever been discovered. 

As the authors explain in the body text of their new paper: 

The eco- and artefacts from these assemblages are difficult to interpret conclusively in the context of the classical BB package, and in terms of its transformations in the course of the journey ‘from neighbour to neighbour’. For this reason, the most important research issue is to establish the origin of the unearthed sources and the associated socio-cultural activity. This will also answer the question as to whether this is a case of diffusion of ideas or migration of individuals.

The mix of artifacts was eclectic, however (quoted from the body text of the cited paper):

One of the most interesting specimens in this group is a fragment of a decorated bowl with an incised zone-metopic pattern of the saltire motif, which originated in the area east of the Rhine River and is usually associated with the Veluve type. 

Another interesting item is a fragment of a profiled bowl witha wide mouth, decorated with an incised criss-cross pattern on the rim, below which a zone-metopic decoration was made with the same technique. Two decoration zones were made on the outer surface – horizontal cord impressions in the upper part, with a band of incised criss-cross pattern below. Due to its form and style, the bowl has parallels in the south-western BB zone, where the cord motifs are found together with motifs incised or impressed with a comb. Cord decoration was made in the upper portion of the vessels, sometimes on the inner surface just below the rim, and the pottery was characterized by a red-brown or reddish colour, which fully corresponds with the specimen in question. However, cord impressions are regarded as foreign in Western Europeand associated with the influence of the Corded Ware culture (CWC) (from another perspective, as one of the results of the Rückstromm). Whole it is the only specimen of pottery decorated in this manner which has been found in Podlachia, a few vessels decorated in a similar way have been discovered in north-eastern Poland – in the Masurian Lake District, where CWC and BB materials have also been unearthed. Therefore, it is possible that the vessel from Supraśl was made in the area of the Masurian Lake District.

The arrowheads at the site are typical of those found at Bell Beaker sites in the Czech Republic, central Poland, and southwestern Norway, rather than the style found in Atlantic Bell Beaker sites or the style common in Central Europe. 

The arrow shaft straighteners found at the site are of a type typical of local Mesolithic hunter-gatherers that have never been found in a Bell Beaker context before. 

The stone knives found at the site were an innovation that has no close parallels in any known prehistoric context and are made from stone probably imported from Scandinavia. 

The flint objects were not made from local materials and are typical of those found in southeastern coastal Baltic areas and southeastern French settlements and only two other examples of flint objects of this type have been found in Poland, some at the nearby Ząbie site in the Masurian Lake District, where pottery bearing BB features was also unearthed and single specimen was discovered at Święcice in Lesser Poland.

The mix of amber, stone and bone jewelry also shows diverse origins:

Cylindrical amber beads are known from BB contexts, but their territorial range is basically limited to the British Isles. The nodular bead is a form which can be found in BB burials in the Czech Republic. As opposed to the beads, the pendant was made of a natural chunk of amber and was only minimally processed to alter its shape and drill a hole in it. Parallel pendants are not known from BB contexts, but are associated with local societies from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age occupying the Vistula and Oder Rivers basins. 

The processing marks visible on the surfaces under microscope as well as comparative and experimental research indicate that metal tools (a drill and a‘knife’), made of copper or copper alloy, were used in the production process. Since no traces of the use of such tools from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age have been found at amber processing ‘workshops’ on Baltic coasts, it should be assumed that these artefacts originated in other areas of production. Available data suggest that in this period corresponding ‘jeweller’s’ tools were used in the British Isles and the area of the Aegean Sea. Considering other arguments, connected with the context of the analysed amber artefacts, their origin might be found in ‘jeweller’ traditions of the British Isles. Nevertheless, it does not mean that they were made there as they might as well be the products of a incomer. 

These artefacts include two pendants made of different raw materials. One of them is a mudstone pebble turned into jewellery by drilling a perforation in it. The other is a broken oval plaquette-like form made of slate and has surfaces covered with decoration, whose motifs correspond with the ones found on pottery. It shows a surprising similarity to geometric plaquettes from the south-western part of the Iberian Peninsula, dated to 3500–2750 cal BC. Some researchers regard them as representations of the Mother Goddess. Others believe these plaquettes express ‘collective heraldry’ understood as lineage identifiers, which were used as an ordered and important system for transmission of information. The latter group also emphasizes their significance in funerary rituals. However, a phylogenetic analysis recently conducted by Daniel García Riveroand Michael J. O’Brien showed that such plaquettes cannot be genealogical systems for recording generations. They also concluded that these artefacts might have had a common origin in terms of concepts, e.g., religious or apotropaic ones, and their variety was connected with different developments from the initial idea, which resulted in many variable elements, that is, mutations and variants. 

These include two objects made of different types of sandstone, two fragments of white rock: calcareous sinter and limestone rock, as well as some badly burned and fragmented human and animal bones. One of the artefacts is a small flat slab with an incised saltire and a plano-convex form made of a pebble with an incised three-arm cross on the convex surface. Neither of these objects have parallels in BB contexts. However, they are similar to pottery tokens from the Near East, used from the 8th to the 3rd millennium BC as symbolic counting aids for particular goods or their measures, e.g., for a sheep or large measure of grain.

The overall context of the find as a whole also adds more to the overall eclectic impression it leaves (although I seem to recall Bell Beaker blogger and/or the Old European Culture blog discussing the intentional destruction of artifacts in funerary-like contexts, sometimes without bodies at all, in the British Isles, possibly as a means of making a sort of divinely sanctioned oath or promise, so the authors awareness of the literature here may be limited):

[T]he origin of the ritual involving the deposition of fragments of objects, confirmed in all the features, and its incorporation into ritual practices cannot be accounted for. This practice was applied mainly in the case of pottery and some pieces of amber jewellery, or, rather rarely, weapons. Similar acts of intentional fragmentation of artefacts (mostly pottery) deposited in burials, pits and treasure contexts are known from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic discoveries in the Balkan Peninsula.

The abstract of the new paper and its citation are as follows:

The Bell Beaker (BB) cultural package is one of the concepts explaining the extensive diffusion of this phenomenon in Europe. Artefacts associated with the package, discovered mainly in the graves of men, form groups defining the status of the deceased. The BB package is a dynamic turn of events, changing depending on the region, but preserving certain characteristic traits. The complete set of its initial ingredients was not copied in any location, and new local elements wereadded in various areas of its diffusion. The ritual features unearthed in north-eastern Poland, which contained elements of the BB package, are the assemblages located the furthest in the East European periphery of the phenomenon. The eco- and artefacts from these assemblages are difficult to interpret conclusively within the framework of the classic BB package, as well as in terms of its changes associated with its diffusion. This is connected with the fact that they include elements unknown among the local cultural entities, which reflect the broad circle of contacts their owners maintained.

Manasterski et al., "Bell Beaker cultural package in the Eastern European periphery of the phenomenon: a case of ritual features in north-eastern Poland", Documenta Praehistorica XLVII (2020).

The authors attempt to cobble together a narrative of a long single journal that might explain this odd and out of place mix of materials in their discussion section, but I omit it, as it only barely hangs together and close this post with their conclusions, beginning with a description of the physical geographic context of the site which resembles an English moor with associated bogs:

Supraśl site 3 is an isolated sandy elevation situated among water-logged meadows associated with wetlands of the Supraśl River, which is now a regulated watercourse. They occupy a stretch of land which is more than a kilometre wide. The landscape in its vicinity consists of barren moraine hills covered with forests as well as lakes and ponds, mostly with peat vegetation. Palynological analysis shows that these areas were only sporadically used for farming from the Early Bronze Age to the 20th century AD. At the same time, they were a perfect location for the economic activity of hunter-gatherer societies, which were represented by NCC in the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC. For this reason, it could be surprising that BB representatives arrived in this region.

The answer can be found in the analysis of the natural and archaeological context. On one hand, there existed a water communication network which served for transport and isolated artefacts with typical BB components were found. On the other hand, it was close to chalk flint mines located along the Ros River and flint workshops situated in the vicinity of the mines. 

All these indicate that this was most likely an attempt to find trade partners and organize communication routes or take control of the existing ones. For these reasons, it should not be surprising that mainly isolated BB artefacts without a clear settlement or funerary context were unearthed in north-eastern Poland. 

The discoveries from Supraśl 3 escape this pattern. They cannot be conclusively classified as isolated finds, settlement relics, or classic burials. 

Both the choice of the place (an isolated ‘island’ among wetlands, with access from the river-side, surrounded by large forests – a secret place for the initiated) and the selection of the objects in the discovered features suggest that relics of a certain form of a ritual system, most probably funerary practices, were found. This is indicated by the presence of human cremation remains identified in two features as well as sets of artefacts found in burials of BB men – archers/warriors (beakers, archer’s accessories, daggers, jewellery). The recurrence of the sets of eco- and artefacts and their arrangement in the assemblages suggest the existence of ritual traditions. 

Although most pottery vessels and the decorated slate plaquette/pendant may suggest their Iberian lineage, it is difficult to list parallels in terms of place and behaviour relics. This is relevant to both autochthonic and allochthonic societies occupying north-eastern Poland.

This site seems analogous to the the Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site in rural Southeastern Colorado that was operational from 1833 CE to 1849 CE, and which, for much of its 16-year history, was the only major white American permanent settlement on the Santa Fe Trail between Missouri and the Mexican settlements close to the Arkansas River.

Bent's Fort was an early, long term frontier trading post and military destination of a geographically remote, comparatively technologically advanced culture to the local one, trading (and intermarrying, in the case of Bent's Fort, it is hard to tell at this northeast Polish site) not just with the local populations (at least two linguistically distinct Native American tribe in the region), but also with different but with members of other comparably technologically advanced cultures (mostly Mexican and French) exploring and trading in this frontier region at the same time, as part of a very far flung trade network, resulting an eclectic mix of goods and practices that were highly atypical of the general region.

Spinach

Linguistically, at least, the words for the leafy green vegetable known as "Spinach" in both Indo-European languages like English and French, Afro-Asiatic languages, and in Chinese, derives from a Persian word. This is consistent with what we know about the origins of this domesticated plant, which was domesticated there about two thousand years ago, and then dispersed globally over the last fifteen hundred years or so:

Spinach (Spinacia oleracea) is a leafy green flowering plant native to central and western Asia. It is of the order Caryophyllales, family Amaranthaceae, subfamily Chenopodioideae. . . . 

Spinach is thought to have originated about 2000 years ago in ancient Persia from which it was introduced to India and ancient China via Nepal in 647 AD as the "Persian vegetable". In AD 827, the Saracens introduced spinach to Sicily. The first written evidence of spinach in the Mediterranean was recorded in three 10th-century works: a medical work by al-Rāzī (known as Rhazes in the West) and in two agricultural treatises, one by Ibn Waḥshīyah and the other by Qusṭus al-Rūmī. Spinach became a popular vegetable in the Arab Mediterranean and arrived in Spain by the latter part of the 12th century, where Ibn al-ʻAwwām called it raʼīs al-buqūl, 'the chieftain of leafy greens'. Spinach was also the subject of a special treatise in the 11th century by Ibn Ḥajjāj.

Spinach first appeared in England and France in the 14th century, probably via Spain, and gained common use because it appeared in early spring when fresh local vegetables were not available. Spinach is mentioned in the first known English cookbook, the Forme of Cury (1390), where it is referred to as 'spinnedge' and/or 'spynoches'. During World War I, wine fortified with spinach juice was given to injured French soldiers with the intent to curtail their bleeding.

The Persian (i.e. Iranian) word for Spinach, however, has origins much deeper than its domestication about the year 0 CE (when "Middle Iranian" was one of the main languages spoken in Persia, with the cutoff between Middle Iranian and Old Iranian often put at around 400 BCE):

Kulturwort of Iranian origin. According to Asatrian, there were probably two forms in late Middle Iranian, *ispanāg (or *ispināg) and (the dialectal) *ispanāx (or *ispināx), yielding Arabized forms إِسْفَنَاج / إِسْفِنَاج‎ (ʾisfanāj / ʾisfināj) and إِسْفَنَاخ / إِسْفِنَاخ‎ (ʾisfanāḵ / ʾisfināḵ), which were popularized in Persian and Arabic, respectively (alternative forms with پ‎ (p) are directly from Middle Iranian). 

The Old Iranian form would be *spināka-, *spinaka- (compare Northern Kurdish sping), from the root *spin- (Northwestern Iranian), *sin- (Southwestern Iranian), ultimately from the Proto-Iranian *spai- (*spi-), from Proto-Indo-European *spey- (“thorn-like”) (*spi-), which are also reflected in Latin spina, Persian سنجد‎ (senjed), Ossetian сындз (synʒ), синдзӕ (sinʒæ, “thorn”), Baluchi (šinž), Central Iranian šeng, Kermani šank (“thorn”). Also akin to Semnani esbenāγa.

According to Cabolov, related to Northern Kurdish siping (“meadow salsify, possibly also spinach”) and Persian سپند‎ (sipand, “wild rue”).

The derivation of the root word for Spinach from words meaning thorny or spiky reflects the appearance of its seeds:

Spinach seeds are generally referred to as round – which is relatively smooth – or prickly, with seeds that are sharp and pointed borne in a capsule with several spines. If you have ever tried removing the seeds of prickly spinach from the stalk by hand, you quickly learned why it is called prickly. It hurts.

According to the UN Food & Agriculture Organization, in 2018, world production of spinach was 26.3 million tonnes, with China alone accounting for 90% of the total.

Ultimogeniture

There were periods of time in some Eurasian cultures in which the youngest son, rather than the oldest son, inherited everything, a practice called "ultimogeniture" which is consistently attested as a practice many places in Slavic Europe, pretty much through the Industrial Revolution, and is also implied or alluded to in the legendary histories of both Indo-European and linguistically Semitic peoples.

The author of the Old European culture blog grasps at ways to explain this outcome. I would offer a variation on these theme.

Perhaps established adult sons were capable of fending for themselves in the societies where this practice developed, at the time of their parents' death, because inherited wealth wasn't terribly important in these economies or there was a practice of making lifetime gifts to older children when they became adults and established their own households. But if these economies were based more on labor than on capital wealth, then the wealth of dying parents wouldn't have been substantial enough to have much impact if divided among all of the sons. 

The fact that this was mostly an urban practice at its Western European extent, in towns where commerce and labor were economically important, unlike rural farmers for whom inherited land was most important, supports this analysis.

However, the least well established youngest son who might be only a young adult, or even an adolescent when his parents died, might be the most likely to need economic life support through an inheritance (and the mostly likely to still be at home, giving the youngest son a logistical edge in controlling the inheritance as well), and out of fairness would have received the least benefit from lifetime gifts from a parent. In the pre-birth control world, the youngest son might have been born with parents in their late 30s or early 40s, and the life expectancy for adults in that era was probably around their 60s.

Life expectancy at birth was often 25 to 35 years, but infant and child mortality was high, and people who survived to adulthood could live to as long as about 70 under ideal conditions. In crude averages, typical people had four or more children children, a quarter of whom died as infants, a quarter of whom died as children or young adults, sometimes after having children and sometimes not, and the rest of whom who survived well into adulthood. Only a little more than half of children born in premodern times survived to adulthood and had surviving children.

Some semblence of ultimogenitor, if the parents die before all of their children have reached middle age, is a not uncommon way for trusts for the benefit of the children of upper middle class modern families to be handled (something I do regularly in my day job as an attorney).

There is a peculiar plot found in many Eurasian fairytales: Brothers (mostly three) have to complete a task (like kill a dragon), which will get them a princess and a throne...And all the brothers fail, except the youngest, who gets both the girl and the throne...

Russian: Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf

Serbian: The Nine Peahens and the Golden Apples

German: The Queen Bee

Iranian: Simorgh

One interpretation of this fairytale plot is that it describes Ultimogeniture, the inheritance practice in which all the family land and the family house is inherited by the youngest son...

The fact that this plot is found in stories from Europe to Central Asia is very interesting, because in most parts of Eurasia in the past it was the oldest son who inherited all the property or the property was split equally between all the sons...

There were some exception to this rule though:

1. Slavs

Ultimogeniture was particularly prevalent in Russia, where it was enshrined in law in The Pravda Russkaya, or Yaroslav’s Law, written ca. 1017 AD by Yaroslav the Wise...

. . . 

Ultimogeniture was recorded in the 18th and 19th century in many Slavic countries like Russia, Poland, Serbia... 

2. Mongols

Among Mongols, Ultimogeniture (the inheritance by the youngest son) was practiced in combination with Primogeniture (the inheritance by the oldest son) and several other inheritance rules. Which caused chaos...

3. "Some people" from England, Eastern Germany, Denmark, Austria

Ultimogeniture was also practiced in certain parts of England where it was called "Borough-English" and was by the Normans called “the custom of the English towns”...And in some parts of Eastern Germany, Denmark and Austria...

The origin of the Ultimogeniture in England, Germany, Austria and Denmark is unknown...

Thomas William Shore, in his 1906 book "Origin of the Anglo–Saxon race" attributed this custom "to the West Slavic tribes which were part of Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain" and "to the West Slavic tribes who once lived in Germany, Austria and Denmark" 

Some have argued that this custom was brought to Europe by the Steppe nomads, like the Huns, Mongols and Turks...

But I couldn't find any mention of Ultimogeniture being practiced by the Huns or Turks who both practiced Primogeniture. And as I said, Mongols had several different conflicting inheritance rules which leads me to believe that they adopted Ultimogeniture from someone else...

. . . 

But I think that Ultimogeniture originated not in Iron Age Eurasian steppe societies, but in much earlier, Bronze Age Indo-European steppes societies...

Why do I think so? Because we find Ultimogeniture at the core of the Ancient Greek myths...

There, Uranus gets overthrown by his youngest son Cronus. Only to be overthrown by his youngest son Zeus.

Yet the Greeks, like everyone else around them, practiced Primogeniture...So what's going on here?

I believe that this practice probably comes from the times of the expansions. When elder sons were sent away to "carve their own piece of land for themselves" and the youngest was left at home to take care of the parents and the ancestral lands...

Why this was practiced by some settled peoples like Slavs is not easy to explain...

Interestingly David, the youngest of 8 sons, becomes the king of Jews...Joseph of Genesis also the youngest son and favoured...And Isaac...

But just like Greeks, Jews practiced Primogeniture...

From the Old European Culture blog.