The Port Jefferson Documentary Spring Series continues on Monday, April 11 with a screening of “The Automat” at Theatre Three, 412 Main St., Port Jefferson at 7 p.m.
Chock-full of rich archival footage of old Philadelphia and NYC, this everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-automats film is a lighthearted trip through the history of Horn & Hardart’s iconic and innovative eateries. Led by the irrepressible Mel Brooks, the film also features an impressive roster of celebrities (Colin Powell, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Carl Reiner, to name a few) waxing nostalgic on their experiences at the nickel-driven restaurants and their dreamy lemon meringue pie. Automats fed millions throughout the Depression and two World Wars, serving all comers in palaces of marble, silver, and steel.
Good food served cheap, and the enduring thrill of the automat machines themselves wins the Automat a place in our culture and hearts alike. More than just entertainment, THE AUTOMAT is a parable of how we once dined happily together before turning to the isolated and unhappy experience offered by fast food, a bad deal that no amount of advertising can disguise. Running time is 79 minutes.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Director Lisa Hurwitz moderated by Tom Needham, Host of The Sounds of Film at WUSB radio.
Tickets are $10 per person at the door or at www.portjeffdocumentaryseries.com.
A scene from 'I Am Here'. Photo courtesy of @Micha Serraf/ Sanktuary Films
By Jeffrey Sanzel
The opening of Jordy Sank’s documentary I Am Here is a montage of news reports from recent anti-Semitic events. It is a visual and emotional assault, with the ever-present and always disturbing swastika. From this, he cuts to a disc jockey at a Jewish radio station talking about Holocaust survivor Ella Blumenthal’s response to a hateful attack from a Holocaust denier. In Blumenthal’s letter, she offers to meet with the author. She wants to answer hate with a connection.
I Am Here is an account of Blumenthal’s life. Celebrating her 98th birthday in Cape Town, South Africa, surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and friends, she relates her story.
A scene from ‘I Am Here’. Photo courtesy of @Micha Serraf/ Sanktuary Films
Born in Warsaw, she was 18 years old when World War II broke out in 1939. She lost 23 family members—“dear souls”—sent from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka death camp. She, her father, and her niece, Roma, went into hiding, but following the Ghetto uprising, the three were deported to Majdanek. She witnessed her father struck down by a guard—which was the last time she saw him. In 1943, she and Roma were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau (where she was tattooed prisoner 48632) and finally ended in Bergen-Belsen before liberation.
Blumenthal shares her harrowing journey with passion and raw honesty. Speaking of things that she had held inside for years, her details evoke deep pain. She remembers the smell of burning feathers in the destruction of the Ghetto. She tells of the room in which they were held before deportation. At night, guards would come and take young girls and rape them.
The camps’ horrors are told in vivid, clear detail. She relates of nearly being gassed but getting a reprieve because the quota of five hundred exterminations had been filled. She describes the hanging of a prisoner after an escape attempt. At one point, Roma was contemplating suicide by throwing herself on the electrified fence. When they arrived in Bergen-Belsen, the camp had become nothing more than a charnel house, with the dead and dying everywhere. But even in this nightmare, she states: “I never lost hope, even in the darkest times of my life.”
She believes it was neither luck nor chance but God that helped her survive. Even in her tenth decade, she shows joy, light, and appreciation for all she has. She strives to bond with people, making visits, going on Facebook, and talking to her niece, who lives in New York. She believes that we must “make friends and show kindness.”
Her post-war life led her to Paris, then Palestine, where she met her South African husband, Isaac. They wed after only knowing each other for thirteen days. After that, they moved to Johannesburg, where they opened a business and raised a family. Her married life is shown in a wealth of home movies.
A scene from ‘I Am Here’. Photo courtesy of @Micha Serraf/ Sanktuary Films
Juxtaposed with her history are clips of her current life: spending time with family, swimming, walking, and even making the Sabbath challah. References to “no food must be wasted” and “the plate must be cleared,” as well as a certain frugality (the use of one tea bag to make multiple cups), are presented with humor tinged with the shadow of one who went without.
What separates I Am Here from similar documentaries is the 2D animation. Created by Greg Bakker, the rough cartoons enhance the narrative with muted colors and stilted movement. These sections are more effective and affecting than the standard archival photos and stock footage that are employed elsewhere in the film. These moving illustrations create haunting images.
At the behest of her husband’s family, Blumenthal had her tattoo removed, an unusual and disturbing request, essentially eradicating her experience. She claimed the resulting scar was from a freak car accident. For years, she did not tell her children about her suffering “because the open wounds were still bleeding.” And yet, the adult children speak of her waking up screaming from nightmares. Blumenthal said that these terrible dreams were of the Nazis taking her children. Unfortunately, these questions and ramifications are not fully addressed. The letter from the beginning of the film is never mentioned again.
Blumenthal touches on some of the things that still haunt her. When speaking of her lost family, she muses, “Every person has a grave to go to. I have none. Not even ashes.” She admits that she had trouble mixing with people after the War for they did not know what she went through. She had to build a family to find a new world.
I Am Here offers a portrait of survival but a celebration of life. Blumenthal demonstrates gratitude for the family “next to her now” and “who can hear her when she laughs or cries.” People come to her for blessings as they see her as a source of positivity. She fears that what happened could happen again, and “we should not forget.” But her final message is “We must love people around us. Love everybody” — a powerful statement from a remarkable person.
Rated PG-13, I Am Here is now playing in local theaters.
Albert G. Prodell Middle School seventh grade students in the Shoreham-Wading River School District are commemorating Women’s History Month with their studies and a paper quilt that was created to showcase the dynamic and powerful contributions of many women in history.
The project was spearheaded by social studies teacher Corinne Fallon, who is a member of the Women’s History Month committee.
The quilt features black and white cutouts and short profiles of Clara Barton, Amelia Earhart, Anne Frank, Frida Kahlo, Helen Keller, Rosa Parks, Sonia Sotomayor and others. It is a tribute to and reminder of the vital role that they play in America’s past, present and future.
From left, Chris Ryon, Steve Albanese and Town of Brookhaven historian Barbara Russell.
By Chris Ryon
Many years ago, I convinced my neighbor Helen Giles to donate a bell her late husband had purchased to my other neighbor, Carl Erikson. Helen’s husband, Bruce, had owned the building on the corner of Old Coach Road and 25A in East Setauket and dreamed of restoring the cupola and bell to the historic schoolhouse building.
Carl Erikson had a passion for church bells and the church he cared for, the Russian Orthodox Church in Setauket. Carl put the bell in back of his shop at the church. Known as “Father John” to his parishioners, he sadly passed away over two years ago. He was my neighbor and friend for 20 years.
Carl studied and analyzed bells and even had plans to cast his own. He bought scrap brass and had designs on how to melt and cast his own. He was also a physics teacher and loved numbers and engineering.
I was buying a large bandsaw from Carl’s estate when I saw the bell on a woodpile. I knew the present owner of the building was planning to reconstruct the bell tower. After discussing it with the executor it was donated back.
Steve Albanese now owns the old schoolhouse building. I called his busy accounting office and told his secretary that I had the bell. Steve called later and could not believe that the bell was coming back to him. He was working on plans to rebuild the cupola this spring and was looking for a bell. The bell now sits proudly in his office waiting area waiting to ring again.
Chris Ryon is the historian for the Village of Port Jefferson.
Stephanie Baez will be one of the guest speakers at the event. Photo from SBU
Stony Brook University recognizes Women’s History Month with its annual celebration that highlights the achievements of women, raises awareness against bias, and promotes social action for equality. This year’s theme #BreakTheBias was adopted from International Women’s Day which is held annually on the first Tuesday in March. Events will take place through Monday, March 28.
The university’s “Hybrid Opening Program in Celebration of International Women’s Day” will take place on Monday, March 7 at 1 p.m., ET in the Student Activities Center Ballroom A with limited seating, and will also be accessible on Zoom. This year’s program will feature a discussion about issues facing women with three accomplished SBU alumni — Maureen Ahmed ’11, Stephanie Baez ’08 and Brooke Ellison ’12.
The program will be hosted by senior Cassandra Skolnick, a student member of the Women’s History Month Committee who is majoring in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. In addition, student moderators will be Amber Lewis, a Junior, Journalism major; Minors in Music and Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Sanjana Thahura, a Senior, Biology major with Interdisciplinary Biology Specialization, Undergraduate College Academy Minor in Health and Wellness. Attendees can register online to attend the opening ceremony on Zoom.
Meet the panelists:
Stephanie Baez
Maureen Ahmed (‘11) is a foreign-affairs officer with the U.S. Department of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), where she provides policy guidance on how to advance human rights, democracy, and governance across South and Central Asia. Ahmed is also an international human rights activist and policy leader with expertise in diplomacy, foreign policy, human rights, gender, global health, HIV epidemiology, and civil society integration. Prior to DRL, she worked at the Department’s Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator (O/GAC), where she managed the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) South Africa program, the United States’ largest global health assistance program Ahmed was named a 2020 National Security Fellow with the Truman National Security Project and a 2019-2020 Penn Kemble Fellow with the National Endowment of Democracy.
Maureen Ahmed
Stephanie Baez (‘08) is vice president for Communications and Public Affairs at Global Strategy Group in New York, a public relations and research firm. She leads strategic communications planning initiatives that incorporate traditional and digital communications channels and platforms, as well as grassroots/grasstops components. Baez served as the communications director for Congressmen Hakeem Jeffries and John Conyers, was senior vice president of public affairs for the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and was director of communications and public affairs for the Central Park Conservancy. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with a concentration in Journalism.
Brooke Ellison
Brooke Ellison (‘12) is an associate professor in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and Behavioral and Community Health in the Stony Brook School of Health Professions. She is also director of the PhD program in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, and director of the Center for Community Engagement and Leadership Development. Ellison’s work as a researcher and scholar focuses on the ethics and policy of science and health care, particularly the intersection of disability and bioethics, and strategies to make healthcare and technology accessible to those most in need. Ellison was paralyzed from the neck down after being hit by a car while walking home from her first day of junior high school; 10 years later, she graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University. She received her PhD in sociology from Stony Brook in 2012, was chosen to be a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2014, and in 2017, was chosen to serve on the board of directors and executive committee of the New York Civil Liberties Union. In 2018, Brooke was named a Truman National Security Project Political Partner and was appointed to serve as a commissioner on the Suffolk County Human Rights Commission in 2020.
On Monday, March 21 (2pm, ET) as part of the speaker series is “In Defense of All Women’s Spaces,” at Melville Library, Special Collections Seminar Room, E-2340.
Stony Brook University graduate instructor Stephanie Bonvissuto will host this discussion:
How does accessing social spaces relate to the social construction of gender and sexual identities? How can site-specific signage taken as signifiers offer a view into societal ethics and cultural ethos? What are the institutional investments in policing bodies and enforcing cis-heteronormativity? And what can queering space (and spatiality) offer in terms of the future design of ‘something else’? This talk takes as its point of departure debates around public gendered restrooms to consider the biopolitics of space, the designs of power and knowledge, and the generative connections between spatial equity and social justice.
On Monday, March 28 (between 3-5pm, ET), “Closing Program in Celebration of International Women’s Day” in the Student Activities Center Ballroom A with limited seating.
Former National Public Radio host of “The Takeaway” as well as New York Times/CNN reporter Tanzina Vega (‘96) will host.
Meet the host:
For more than a decade, Tanzina Vega’s (‘96) journalism career has centered on inequality in the United States through the lens of race and gender. She’s been a reporter and producer for the New York Times and CNN where her work spanned text, digital and broadcast television. She most recently spent three years as the first Latina weekday host of “The Takeaway” on WNYC, New York Public Radio. Tanzina has covered many of the most consequential news events of the past decade, including multiple presidential elections, the COVID 19 pandemic, the rise of #BlackLivesMatter, Puerto Rico’s political crisis and the January 6 Capitol insurrection. In 2019 she was awarded the Robert G. McGruder Distinguished Lecture and Award from Kent State University. Prior to that she was a fellow at the Nation Institute and a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. She is a distinguished graduate of the Craig Newmark School of Journalism at City University of New York where she earned Masters in Digital journalism. She lives with her son in New York City.
Unknown couple circa early 1900s enjoying fishing in the pond. Photo from MCPL
Amongst the Middle Country Public Library’s many historical artifacts are a few that explain just how far the area has come from its pastoral roots. The picture and story below comes courtesy of a collaborative effort among the librarian staff.
Gould’s Pond is both! It is a pond, a body of fresh water, but it is also known as a kettle pond. This name is used for ponds or lakes which form when very large blocks of ice left by glaciers break off, stop moving and melt.
Photo from MCPL
This is exactly what happened when the glacier which formed Long Island reached its southernmost point on its journey down from eastern Canada over 20,000 years ago. There are many kettle ponds and lakes on Long Island, the largest of which is Lake Ronkonkoma. Lake Ronkonkoma is the largest freshwater lake on the Island, measuring approximately two miles in circumference. Fresh water has always been a valuable resource, and Gould’s Pond is one of our local treasures.
People have always chosen to live near water, and Long Islanders were no exception. Middle Country Public Library has some historic atlases which show exactly who lived near the pond back to the late 1800s. Here is an image from Fredrick W. Beers’ “Atlas of Long Island, New York” published in 1873. The pond is represented by a circular feature at the left side of the map.
Individual family names were plotted on older maps like this one. Here we can see labeled homesteads surrounding Gould’s Pond and the names of families who lived on Hawkins Avenue, Middle Country Road, Moriches Road and Saint James and others.
One of the earliest settlers we can name was Morgan Lewis Gould, whose home appears above the pond which bears his name. In 1886, the Town of Brookhaven paid Morgan Lewis Gould and his son, Henry Lewis Gould, $5 to maintain an unobstructed pathway connecting to the main road, four rods wide (approximately 60 feet), for public access to the pond, so residents could bring their livestock to water and to use it for general household purposes.
Two historic houses are still situated near the Pond today, most probably the M.L. Gould and T. Scott homes shown on our 1873 map.
In later years, with home wells or piped water, this freshwater pond was used more for leisure purposes, including ice skating and fishing. But during the 1880s the pond still had a practical purpose – as a source of ice before refrigerators and freezers were commonplace.
In this case, ice from the pond was harvested. It was cut by hand from the surface of the pond and stored for later use. Two separate icehouses were built along the shores of Gould’s Pond, used to store this ice during the warmer seasons.
The large chunks of harvested ice were tightly packed in these icehouses so they would not easily melt. Sometimes, straw or sawdust was used for insulation, and in many cases, icehouse foundations were built below ground to keep the ice frozen year-round. Research shows that after World War I, the icehouses were no longer necessary and were dismantled.
Today, Gould’s Pond is used for hiking, nature watching and fishing. A gentle hill which is popularly used for sledding lies next to the pond. This hill was most likely scooped out by that same glacier which formed the pond so many years ago. You can find Gould’s Pond at the corner of Moriches and Saint James Roads in Lake Grove, where a beautifully lettered sign marks its spot.
Unknown couple circa early 1900s enjoying fishing in the pond. Photo from MCPL
Gould’s Pond: Is it a pond or a kettle?
Amongst the Middle Country Public Library’s many historical artifacts are a few that explain just how far the area has come from its pastoral roots. The picture and story below comes courtesy of a collaborative effort among the librarian staff.
Gould’s Pond is both! It is a pond, a body of fresh water, but it is also known as a kettle pond. This name is used for ponds or lakes which form when very large blocks of ice left by glaciers break off, stop moving and melt.
This is exactly what happened when the glacier which formed Long Island reached its southernmost point on its journey down from eastern Canada over 20,000 years ago. There are many kettle ponds and lakes on Long Island, the largest of which is Lake Ronkonkoma. Lake Ronkonkoma is the largest freshwater lake on the Island, measuring approximately two miles in circumference. Fresh water has always been a valuable resource, and Gould’s Pond is one of our local treasures.
People have always chosen to live near water, and Long Islanders were no exception. Middle Country Public Library has some historic atlases which show exactly who lived near the pond back to the late 1800s. Here is an image from Fredrick W. Beers’ “Atlas of Long Island, New York” published in 1873. The pond is represented by a circular feature at the left side of the map.
Individual family names were plotted on older maps like this one. Here we can see labeled homesteads surrounding Gould’s Pond and the names of families who lived on Hawkins Avenue, Middle Country Road, Moriches Road and Saint James and others.
One of the earliest settlers we can name was Morgan Lewis Gould, whose home appears above the pond which bears his name. In 1886, the Town of Brookhaven paid Morgan Lewis Gould and his son, Henry Lewis Gould, $5 to maintain an unobstructed pathway connecting to the main road, four rods wide (approximately 60 feet), for public access to the pond, so residents could bring their livestock to water and to use it for general household purposes.
Two historic houses are still situated near the Pond today, most probably the M.L. Gould and T. Scott homes shown on our 1873 map.
In later years, with home wells or piped water, this freshwater pond was used more for leisure purposes, including ice skating and fishing. But during the 1880s the pond still had a practical purpose – as a source of ice before refrigerators and freezers were commonplace.
In this case, ice from the pond was harvested. It was cut by hand from the surface of the pond and stored for later use. Two separate icehouses were built along the shores of Gould’s Pond, used to store this ice during the warmer seasons.
The large chunks of harvested ice were tightly packed in these icehouses so they would not easily melt. Sometimes, straw or sawdust was used for insulation, and in many cases, icehouse foundations were built below ground to keep the ice frozen year-round. Research shows that after World War I, the icehouses were no longer necessary and were dismantled.
Today, Gould’s Pond is used for hiking, nature watching and fishing. A gentle hill which is popularly used for sledding lies next to the pond. This hill was most likely scooped out by that same glacier which formed the pond so many years ago. You can find Gould’s Pond at the corner of Moriches and Saint James Roads in Lake Grove, where a beautifully lettered sign marks its spot.
The Port Jefferson Village Center’s second floor gallery unveiled its latest exhibit today, March 3. Titled Celebrating Women’s Suffrage and the Timeless Collection of Nan Guzzetta, it recognizes the determined advocacy of historical local suffragists and celebrates the life and legacy of Port Jefferson’s Antique Costume and Prop Rental proprietor Nancy Altman “Nan” Guzzetta, who passed away in 2021. The show runs through March 31.
Fifteen costumed mannequins supplied by the estate of Nan Guzzetta and a comprehensive display on the suffrage movement by Town of Brookhaven Historian Barbara Russell are the focal points of the exhibit, which consists of textiles, photos, posters, and documents. It was conceptualized by Port Jefferson Mayor Margot Garant.
‘The sky is now her limit’ by Elmer Andrews Bushnell. Image courtesy of loc.gov
“This serves a twofold purpose: celebrating Women’s History Month in March and honoring and memorializing the life work of Nan, a longtime resident,” said Mayor Garant. “Nan’s work has in particular helped this village for many decades, as she put her trademark costume design on many of our festivals including our traditional Dickens event. This exhibit gives us the ability to open up her displays to the general public with a special emphasis on the women’s suffragette movement.”
Established in 1977, Guzzetta’s shop on Main Street in Port Jefferson Village provided costumes and props for parties, weddings, historical re-enactments, museum exhibits, and other private and public events. The women’s suffrage display was her last project.
“Mom got the mannequins ready for another suffrage exhibit that then didn’t happen due to COVID. They were dressed in the parlor and throughout the house when she died; we preserved all those mannequins. They have been dressed that way for a long time, waiting to go on display,” said Nan’s son, Dave Guzzetta.
Port Jefferson historian Chris Ryon reached out to Guzzetta’s family to request the use of the styled mannequins for the exhibit. Expertly draped, Guzzetta’s historical replicas add a dynamic element to the display, according to according to Sue Orifici, who is the Graphic, Archival, and Special Projects Coordinator for the Port Jefferson Village. “The show is in part a homage to her contributions to the community,” she said.
Through her passion for her craft and history, Guzzetta sought to make sure the past, including the stories of suffragists, was not only remembered but alive. “She loved history and bringing it to life,” her daughter-in-law Lorraine said.
A co-founder of the Port Jefferson Charles Dickens Festival, Nan collaborated with the Port Jefferson Village Center and local educational nonprofits such as the Port Jefferson Historical Society and the Three Village Historical Society, offering her expertise, insight, costumes, and accessories.
“Nan was a tremendous part of our annual Spirits Cemetery Tour, outfitting and designing each costume worn by actors for nearly 20 years,” said Director Mari Irizarry of Three Village Historical Society. “Nan will forever be remembered as a significant contributor toward the fostering of interest in local history and a fuller appreciation of the rich historical and cultural heritage of our community.”
It was such a shared professional and personal investment in historical education and preservation that connected Guzzetta with Barbara Russell. Like many people involved in the suffrage exhibit, Russell worked with Guzzetta and personally experienced how the intersection of her interests formed her business and her support of the community.
Annie Tinker
“I met Nan when she first started her business. She called Fran Child from the Port Jefferson Historical Society and suggested a fashion show using her costumes and models from the Society. I think it was circa 1978…I ended up modeling 19th ‘underclothes.’ Trust me, I was well covered up in cotton fabric. It was a really fun event and kicked off Nan’s new business,” said Russell.
Now, once again, Guzzetta and Russell’s efforts complement each other. The mannequins are the three-dimensional component to the pictures and documents that comprise the rest of the exhibit, specifically Russell’s traveling suffrage display, which explores the suffrage movement on a local, state, and national level.
“One display is six panels on the centennial of women’s right to vote in 2017, organized by the New York State Library, New York State Archives and New York State Museum,” Russell said. “The other standing display is from the National Archives. The town has loaned both displays to the Port Jefferson Harbor Education and Arts Conservancy.”
Individual local suffragists, such as Alva Vanderbilt Belmont and Annie Rensselaer Tinker, are highlighted in the exhibit. Belmont, a wealthy socialite who parlayed her social status and money into fighting for women’s suffrage, founded the Political Equality League and co-founded of the National Woman’s Party. She opened up her lavish Oakdale estate Idle Hour for fundraisers, networking, and strategizing.
Tinker, a member of the Woman’s Political Union, who summered in Poquott, participated in meetings, rallies, marches, and theatrical benefits for women’s suffrage. She also established and trained a women’s cavalry.
These individual profiles and details enhance the human interest element that Guzzetta strove to embrace with her costuming, combining art and entertainment with learning. “She really loved the historical, the theatrical. She really wanted to be sure that everyone had fun. It was not enough to be appropriately dressed. She wanted people to have fun … people had to have fun,” her widower Charles said.
Guzzetta’s joy in sharing stories and making history more tangible were hallmarks of her business, one that Dave and Lorraine hope to continue. “There is a plan and we are in the middle of organizing… We are hoping there is a call for her work, that it is able to sustain itself,” Dave said.
Celebrating Women’s Suffrage and the Timeless Collection of Nan Guzzetta will be on view on the second floor of the Port Jefferson Village Center, 101-A East Broadway, Port Jefferson through March 31. The Center is open seven days a week, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Join them for a reception on Sunday, March 6 from 2 to 4 p.m. For more information, please visit www.portjeff.com/gallery/ or call 631-802-2160.
Ostrich eggshell beads found at the Mlambalasi site. These beads are examples of Later Stone Age cultural objects that people created and traded as they traveled the continent. Photo by Jennifer Miller
Ancient DNA from the remains of nearly three dozen African foragers—groups associated with hunting, gathering, and fishing—sheds new light on how groups across sub-Saharan Africa lived, traveled and settled prior to the spread of herding and farming. The study involved an international team of 44 researchers including experts from Stony Brook University. The findings, to be published in Nature, produced the earliest DNA of humans on the continent, at some 5,000 to 18,000 years old.
View of the Mlambalasi Rock Shelter in Tanzania, where one of the newly DNA sequenced individuals was recovered by Elizabeth Sawchuk in 2010. Radiocarbon dates suggest that this individual lived approximately 18,000 years ago, making their DNA the oldest currently known in Africa. Photo by Katie Biittner
The new genetic findings add weight to archeological, skeletal and linguistic evidence for changes in how people were moving and interacting across Africa toward the end of the Ice Ages. Around 50,000 years ago, distinct groups of foragers began exhibiting similar cultural traditions, hinting at the development of exchange networks and interregional connections. The reason for this shift, which archaeologists refer to as the Later Stone Age transition, has remained a mystery.
“We demonstrated for the first time that a major archeological transition some 50,000 years ago associated with profound shifts in technology, symbolism, and so-called ‘modern behavior’ in fact coincided with major demographic changes,” said Elizabeth Sawchuk, PhD, Co-First Author, Research Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University and a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta. “We found that ancient foragers across eastern and south-central Africa are a mix of eastern, southern, and central African ancestry, showing there was widespread movement and mixing across sub-Saharan Africa coinciding with the transition from the Middle to Later Stone Age.”
Previous research proposed a genetic cline (or gradient) of variation among ancient African foragers extending from eastern to southern Africa. To the research team’s surprise, this new analysis indicates a three-way cline instead of a two-way cline that includes a central African ancestry – a significant point of future investigation because there has been less archeological research in central Africa than other parts of the continent.
“By associating archaeological artifacts with ancient DNA, the researchers have created a remarkable framework for exploring the prehistory of humans in Africa,” says Archaeology and Archaeometry program director John Yellen of the U.S. National Science Foundation, one of the funders behind this project. “This insight is charting a new way forward to understanding humanity and our complex shared history.”
Sawchuk and Stony Brook colleague and Co-Author Jason Lewis, PhD, presented ancient DNA (aDNA) from six individuals from the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene from five sites in Tanzania, Zambia, and Malawi
These six individuals have now yielded the oldest human DNA from sub-Saharan Africa.
The six individuals were analyzed with 28 previously published ancient persons associated with foraging and/or Later Stone Age material culture. The research team also generated higher coverage data for fifteen of these individuals which permitted a more in-depth look at their DNA.
Lewis co-led a team reanalyzing the history of work and collections from the ancient Tanzanian rockshelter site of Kisese II, particularly in the context and dating of the human remains, allowing the collection to be included in the present study. The skeletons from the site were originally excavated in the 1960s but remained unstudied until recently.
“The work is a great example of the unexpected and important results that can come from going back to old museum collections to take another look with new approaches and technologies, in this case using aDNA methods,” said Lewis.
Ancient DNA and archaeological data now both point toward a demographic transition across Africa around the time that beads, pigments, and symbolic art became more widespread. Sawchuk, Lewis and colleagues note that while scientists have proposed shifts in social networks and perhaps changes in populations sizes played a role, such hypotheses have remained difficult to test.
“We’ve never been able to directly explore proposed demographic shifts until now,” explains Sawchuk. “It has been difficult to reconstruct events in our deeper past using the DNA of people living today, and artifacts can’t tell the whole story. The DNA from people who lived around this time provides the missing piece of the puzzle, offering an unprecedented view of population structures among ancient foragers.”
While this three-way population structure can only be explained by widespread movement and mixing in the past, the researchers also note that the traveling and mixing didn’t last.
Individuals in this study were most genetically similar to their geographic neighbors, which suggests that by 20,000 years ago, people had already stopped moving as much. The authors explain this coincides with archaeological evidence for “regionalization” toward the end of the Ice Ages when Later Stone Age industries began to diversity and take on distinctive local attributes. So while stone and beads continued moving through exchange networks, people themselves began living more locally.
Mary Prendergast, the study’s co-Senior Author and Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rice University, said there are arguments that the development and expansion of long-distance trade networks around these ancient times helped humans weather the last Ice Age.
“Humans began relying on each other in new ways,” she said. “And this shift in how people interacted with one another may have been what allowed people to thrive.
“The work also helps address the global imbalance of research, as there are around 30 times more published ancient DNA sequences from Europe than from Africa,” she added. “Given that Africa harbors the greatest human genetic diversity on the plant, we have much more to learn.”
The entire research team included scholars from the United States, Canada, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and several other countries. Critical contributions to the study came from curators and co-authors from African museums who are responsible for protecting and preserving the remains.
A production crew, above, was at the Three Village Inn in Stony Brook Feb. 18 filming for a documentary about the Green Brook. Photo from Ward Melville Heritage Organization
For several decades in the 20th century, many who were Black would refer to “The Negro Motorist Green-Book” to find hotels, restaurants and more that would be accommodating when they traveled in a segregated United States.
Gloria Rocchio, president of WMHO, Rae Marie Renna, Three Village Inn general manager, Ja-Ron Young, documentary creator Alvin Hall and Chrissy Robinson. Photo from Ward Melville Heritage Organization
Recently, Alvin Hall, who has hosted the “Driving the Green Book” podcast about various locations across the U.S., decided to find out if any of the sites on Long Island existed. During his research, he discovered that the Three Village Inn in Stony Brook was featured in the travel guide a couple of times, and he was pleasantly surprised that the hotel was still standing.
Last Friday, Hall and his documentary crew visited the Three Village Inn to film parts of a new documentary series and sat with The Ward Melville Heritage Organization president, Gloria Rocchio, and the inn’s general manager Rae Marie Renna.
The group talked about the travel guide released annually from 1936 to 1966 and published by African-American mailman Victor Hugo Green from Harlem, New York City. The guidebook was the subject of the 2018 movie “Green Book,” winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, starring Mahershala Ali as classical and jazz pianist Don Shirley and Viggo Mortensen as his driver during one of the pianist’s Southern tours.
The guidebook was published in the spring before people tended to go on vacation during the warmer months, Hall said. It was small enough to fit into an old-fashioned glove compartment, and businesses were able to write in to request to be in it.
Hall said the production team found the Three Village Inn listed in the guide when they were looking at those issued around 1964, the year the Civil Rights Act was passed. The inn was in the 1963 and 1967 editions, according to WMHO. Places such as The Garden City Hotel, Sky Motel in Lindenhurst and Meadowbrook Motor Lodge in Jericho, which were also listed and are still open, will be part of the series, too.
Hall said it’s impressive that places such as Three Village Inn and the other Long Island sites are still standing decades later as many places across the country listed in the Green Book no longer exist.
Hall’s “Driving the Green Book” podcast featured him traveling from Detroit to New Orleans to search for places listed in the travel guide.
“You discover in town after town that often the routing of the interstate highway system was critical to killing off a lot of these places,” he said. “It wasn’t just that the business went down. A lot of it was just that the city decided to build the interstate highway system or major roadway right through that part of town and a lot of it was to kill off the Black business areas.”
When he worked on his podcast, he was on the road for 12 days in 2021 and conducted 40 interviews. It took about a year to edit all the material for the podcast series. With the television documentary, the hope is that it can be completed in a few months.
The producer said the series looks to see what changed in the North after the passing of the Civil Rights Act, what stayed the same, and how the North and South differed.
A photos of attendees at a music festival at Dogwood Hollow Amphitheater. Photo from Ward Melville Heritage Organization
“It just made sense when you heard some of the stories about Long Island during the time of segregation and Jim Crow in the U.S., and the redlining that banks did out there,” Hall said. “So, it became just an interesting place to explore as sort of emblematic of the larger America.”
Hall said while many thought the North was different from the South, “in reality, a lot of the communities were quite segregated.”
“When Black people came up from the South, they were often put in specific neighborhoods, and a narrative was created around their behavior, their attitudes and everything, and used to exclude them. And, Long Island was no different from the rest of America in that way. I think a lot of people came up from the South thinking it was going to be the land of milk and honey, and it turned out just to be another variation on the South.”
During the visit to the Three Village Inn, Hall along with comedian Ja-Ron Young and college student Chrissy Robinson, who also appear in the documentary, learned about Dogwood Hollow Amphitheater where a festival, featuring various artists organized by Ward Melville, was held. This 2,300 seat amphitheater existed, near where the Stony Brook Village Center’s Educational & Cultural Center is now located, from 1955 to 1970. Rocchio said at first it opened with 500 seats but on the first night 500 more people had to be turned away. Within a year, the occupancy increased. The venue offered shows with jazz performers such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and Lionel Hampton. Entertainers, including Liberace and Tony Bennett, also graced the stage.
“We found the contracts in the safe,” Rocchio said. “We could never do what [Melville] did. It was hundreds of thousands of dollars each season, having people like Liberace, the King Sisters.”
It’s believed that the Three Village Inn was included in the book because the entertainers stayed there after shows, something that wasn’t the case in many parts of the country as many Black artists would perform in a venue, but then not be able to lodge or eat there.
Hall said it was a progressive move during the era to have a show such as the music festival in Stony Brook where white and Black people performed together and sat unsegregated in the audience.
“I think that by creating the Dogwood festival at the theater, having jazz and having the same people stay there, that was very unusual,” Hall said, adding the movie “Green Book” showed how Shirley’s driver had to use the book to find places for them to stay.
Hall said Young was surprised when he saw one of the photos from the festival where there weren’t segregated sections, something that was uncommon in the 1960s and earlier.
“He said he was amazed at how integrated the audiences were in the photographs,” Hall said. “He says when he plays clubs it’s either generally a white audience with a few Black people, or a Black audience with a few white people. He noted that back then, at that festival near the inn, that it was more integrated than he sees today. You could tell he was quite amazed by that.”
Hall said he included Young and Robinson to show them the journey many took in the 20th century.
“They not only hear the stories, but it’s very important that they hear how the people coped with it, but also how the people did not get trapped in bitterness about the situation,” Hall said. “And they emerged from the opposite side of this with grace, and they acknowledged what happened, and they clearly see it, but they did not get trapped in bitterness.”
Prev
