University of Liverpool—The University of Liverpool has led an international team of scientists to take a fresh look at the running capabilities of Australopithecus afarensis, the early human ancestor famously represented by the fossil ‘Lucy’.
Karl Bates, Professor of Musculoskeletal Biology, convened experts from institutions across the UK and the Netherlands. Together they used cutting-edge computer simulations to uncover how this ancient species ran, using a digital model of ‘Lucy’s’ skeleton.
Previous work on the fossilized footprints of Australopithecus by multiple research teams has suggested that Lucy probably walked relatively upright and much more like a human than a chimpanzee. These new findings demonstrate that Lucy’s overall body shape limited running speed relative to modern humans and therefore support the hypothesis that the human body evolved to improve running performance, with top speed being a more critical driver than previously thought.
Professor Bates said: “When Lucy was discovered 50 years ago, it was by far the most complete skeleton of an early human ancestor. Lucy is a fascinating fossil because it captures what you might call an intermediate stage in Homo sapiens’ evolution. Lucy bridges the gap between our more tree-dwelling ancestors and modern humans, who walk and run efficiently on two legs.
“By simulating running performance in Australopithecus and modern humans with computer models, we’ve been able to address questions about the evolution of running in our ancestors.
“For decades scientists have debated whether more economical walking ability or improved running performance was the primary factor that drove the evolution of many distinctly human characteristics, such as longer legs and shorter arms, stronger leg bones and our arched feet. By illustrating how Australopithecus walked and ran, we have started to answer these questions.”
The team used computer-based movement simulations to model the biomechanics and energetics of running in Australopithecus afarensis, alongside a model of a human. In both the Australopithecus and human models, the team ran multiple simulations where various features thought to be important to modern human running, like larger leg muscles and a long Achilles Tendon, were added and removed, thereby digitally replaying evolutionary events to see how they impact running speed and energy use.
Muscles and other soft tissues are not preserved in fossils, so palaeontologists don’t know how large ‘Lucy’s’ leg muscles and other important parameters were. However, these new digital models varied the muscle properties from chimpanzee-like to human-like, producing a range of estimates for running speed and economy.
The simulations reveal that while Lucy was capable of running upright on both legs, her maximum speeds were significantly slower than those of modern humans. In fact, even the fastest speed the team predicted for Lucy (in a model with very human-like muscles) remained relatively modest at just 11mph (18kph). This is much slower than elite human sprinters, which reach peak speeds of more than 20mph (38kph). The models show the range of intermediate (‘jogging’) speeds that animals use to run longer distances (‘endurance running’) was also very restricted, perhaps suggesting that Australopithecus didn’t engage in the kind of long-distance hunting activities thought to be important to the earliest humans.
Professor Bates continued: “Our results highlight the importance of muscle anatomy and body proportions in the development of running ability. Skeletal strength doesn’t seem to have been a limiting factor, but evolutionary changes to muscles and tendons played a major role in enhancing running speed and economy.
“As the 50th anniversary of Lucy’s discovery is celebrated, this study* not only sheds new light on her capabilities but also underscores how far modern science has come in unravelling the story of human evolution.”
The study, ‘Running performance in Australopithecus afarensis’ was published in Current Biology (DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2024.11.025).
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Reconstruction of “Lucy”, Warsaw Museum of Evolution. Shalom, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
*Running performance in Australopithecus afarensis, Current Biology, 6-Jan-2025. 10.1016/j.cub.2024.11.025
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EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON! Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!
Bolsena, Italy — As I walked near the shores of this glistening, crystal blue lake, I could easily see why it draws thousands of visitors every year. Boats large and small lined its docks. On this day they were quiet and still. Tourist season was already behind me. Though comfortably warm, hints of the crispness of new fall air were present, yet the verdant landscape that surrounded the lake still displayed its deciduous green — the peek of fall colors were still at least two weeks away.
It is known to most as Lake Bolsena. But though this body of water is much like others that grace the Italian landscape, unlike the others, it boasts a distinctive and dramatic natural history — one that, unbeknownst to most of Europe’s visiting tourists, makes it the largest volcanic lake on the subcontinent. Created as a depression when the area collapsed after a massive subterranean magmatic chamber drained through volcanic eruptions hundreds of thousands of years ago, it then became a central feature of the geography. Even more significant, however, were the multiple associated eruptions that blanketed the surrounding region with volcanic material, creating a new geologic canvas that was shaped by erosion over the ensuing millennia into a dramatic landscape of steep, cavernous valleys and isolated vertical spurs or buttes of tuffaceous (tufa) rock.
The ancients built their high, defensible settlements atop these spurs, and today a remarkable natural and constructive composition of scenic historic hilltop cities and villages span the confluence of Italy’s regions of Umbria, Tuscany and Lazzio.
It was on one of these hilltop locations that I arrived on September 29, 2024 with a small group of veteran travelers of a unique specialty tour company known as Wayfaring Walks. Typically taking small groups to places beyond the usual madding crowd destinations most tourists experience, Wayfaring Walks provides its clients with off-the-beaten-path hiking and walking opportunities through some of the world’s most breathtaking scenery and culturally stimulating sites.
The scenic town of Orvieto was one of those sites. Originally an Etruscan settlement and stronghold, it is thought that this was the location of the Etruscan city of Velzna, and there are still traces of the Etruscan occupation of the site. This was our first stop on what became a once-in-a-lifetime journey….
Day 1:Orvieto
Standing at the edge of a beautiful public park, I peered out and down at the panoramic landscape spread out below me. This was a first for me. The old site of Orvieto sits atop a massive spur of tufa stone, much in form like the isolated buttes one sees in the American Southwest. Every point along the perimeter of Orvieto affords a breathtaking vista of the world around it, with what appears to be a nearly 90% verticality of stone from where one stands at the edge of the city to the adjacent verdant valley surface far below.
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A dramatic cliffside view from Orvieto.
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A view of a portion of the historic defensive wall/fortification at the edge of Orvieto.
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View of the landscape below from Orvieto.
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But what makes Orvieto unique are the incredible subterranean features dug and carved into and through the soft tufa stone beneath the urbanized surface. Our guide takes us first to the city’s iconic Pozzo di San Patrizio, or”Well of St. Patrick”. Dug and constructed between 1527 and 1537 at the request of Pope Clement VII, it was commissioned at least in part to serve as a secure water supply for the people of Orvieto during times of wartime siege, the name inspired by a medieval Irish legend of a pathway down to Purgatory. We entered the shaft of the well and proceeded slowly down the winding, interior stone steps. They were part of a unique double helix of stairs that wound down and back up the shaft. During medieval times, these stairs afforded teams of donkeys to carry water vessels down to the fresh pool of water at the bottom, and after having them filled, would then ascend back up the same set of stairs without ever crossing paths with the descending teams. It is a remarkable work of engineering and we had the exciting opportunity to experience the same movement as we stepped within its deep recesses centuries later. I counted 248 steps, pacing myself with some stops to rest along the way but marveling at the almost otherworldly atmosphere presented by the surrounding centuries-old stonework and 70 window openings that provided illumination from the outside.
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Above and below: inside the Pozzo di San Patrizio
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Later, beyond the well, we entered the complex labyrinth of tunnels, chambers, wells, and some of the more precisely carved-out rooms of the subterranean city that lay unseen beneath the streets and structures of Orvieto’s historic center. Only a small fraction of what has been documented to exist beneath the surface has been excavated and prepared for modern visitors. Our guide stepped us through that representative and publicly available space that hard digging and carving work performed by an untold number of laborers created through the distinctively characteristic soft and pliable tufa stone of the region. It made for ideal quarrying, in order to obtain material needed for construction above during medieval times.The walls and ceilings still showed the last gestures or movements of the workers in this place as they shaped the interior spaces with their pick axes centuries ago. Our guide shows us a place where the quarrying laborers came across an ancient Etruscan well. I peer down into its deep vertical recesses below, wondering what those medieval laborers must have thought about their discovery. Throughout previous excavations and exploratory investigations of this subterranean world, archaeologists have found the trace evidence of the original ancient Etruscan occupation of what must have been, and clearly was for its medieval occupants, a securely fortified and easily defensible bastion from potential enemies.
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In another large space, the guide walks us through the remains of a medieval olive press. And in yet another, an amazingly large columbarium, where centuries before the town’s inhabitants raised and sustained pigeons to produce eggs for sustenance. This was an underground city that featured many of the elements of industry necessary for the economy of a thriving small population.
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The “Etruscan Well”.
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Olive Press
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Olive Press Millstone
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Above and below: subterranean columbarium
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At the surface, we walked through the scenic and medieval ambience of the city’s streets to what is one of Italy’s most iconic cathedrals, the remarkable duomo that has made Orvieto one of Italy’s must-see small towns. The duomo dominates the townscape and has been, since its first cornerstone was laid in 1290 AD, the heart and soul of Orvieto. The exterior of the structure is striped in white travertine and greenish-black basalt, much like the similar and equally iconic cathedral of Siena and other cathedrals in Italy of the time. Most visually stunning to me, however, was the duomo’s facade, graced with the work of master sculptor Lorenzo Maitani of the 14th century.
Inside the duomo, of special note is the Corporal of Bolsena, its story revolving around a eucharistic miracle in Bolsena in 1263, when a consecrated host began to bleed (yes, blood) onto a corporal (a small cloth upon which the host and chalice would rest during performance of the Mass). The miracle of the blood was believed to affirm the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation — the bread and wine literally becoming the Body and Blood of Christ during consecration in the Mass. The story is that the miraculous bleeding of the host occurred in the hands of an officiating priest who harbored doubts about the transubstantiation. The Corporal of Bolsena is preserved in a reliquary inside the duomo to this day.
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Above and below: the facade of the iconic Orvieto Duomo.
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Above and below: the Orvieto duomo, detail view.
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Inside the duomo, a testimony of faith and the story of the biblical account was represented through incredibly rendered wall paintings that decorated its interior spaces.
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Day 2: Following the Aqueduct, and the Dying City
Wayfaring Walks tours are best known for their almost daily walking and hiking elements, and this adventure was no exception. The highlight of our first full day after our Orvieto town experience centered on what our guide leader described as what would be the most rigorous test of our walking/hiking skills and stamina — the woodland trail adjacent to the 13th century aqueduct that overlooked Orvieto. We began this trek on relatively level ground, but soon came to a point where we branched away and up a broad trail along the old aqueduct. The hike was almost totally uphill, a modest cardiovascular experience challenging our strength and endurance. But the natural woodland scenery along the way was well worth the effort, and with our very able and knowledgeable guide, Alessandro Tombelli, with us, it became a journey into the lush diversity of flora that graced our path on either side. Alessandro is an expert gardener and human storehouse of information about the plant life of Italy. We learned and marveled as much about the plants and trees around us as the occasional villas and historic structures we observed along the path. At one point, we stopped near a level clearing near a large agricultural field and enjoyed a panoramic view of old Orvieto in the distance.
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View of Orvieto in the distance from our trail.
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The end of our hike brought us to another parklike clearance with picnic tables among the shade of trees to enjoy a thoughtfully prepared snack of fresh fruit, bread, drinks, and other food items. It was a welcome and, for us, well-earned break. Conversational camaraderie here began to build the bonds of our group that would last for the rest of our tour.
Following lunch, a very short walk to the nearby site of the well-preserved, hidden, 5th century BC underground tomb of an ancient Etruscan noble family, today known as the Hescanas Tomb, greeted the curiosity of our minds. The Hescanas Tomb is famed for the rich traces of fresco illustrations on its interior walls. Little is known about this, obviously wealthy noble family, other than the evidence indicating that it must have been an influential or well-regarded force in the area’s society in their time. The tomb was closed to us on this day, unfortunately, as it was temporarily closed off as necessary work was being performed in and around the tomb structure.
From here, our group was transported to the modern town of Civita di Bagnoregio, where we enjoyed a large lunch in one of the town’s many choice restaurants, before proceeding on for a group walk through town to the entrance to the iconic old medieval town of the same name. Few towns in Italy can compare to the scenic eye-candy of this imposing hilltop settlement. From a distance, it is a breathtaking example of the quintessential hilltop settlement with roots reaching back to Etruscan times. Photographic images are immediately eye-catching, but this is a place that must be visited physically in person to capture the full magic of this ingenuous and imaginative architectural creation at the pinnacle of an almost skyscraper-like geologic formation.
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First view of Civita di Bagnoregio.
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Civita di Bagnoregio has to be earned: a long ascending walk to the breathtaking (literally) hilltop town.
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The church in the center of Civita di Bagnoregio was built during medeival times but the facade was remodeled during the Renaissance.
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To approach it and enter the gate of this citadel, one must traverse a long incline, a ramp-like suspended road construction that ends just before one winds around to the stone entrance gate. It is hard to get lost inside, for it is a small, simple settlement with a central church and medieval period houses that fill every square inch of its characteristically storybook visualpresence. This is a place, both outside and in, that any imaginative filmmaker would say was made for a jaw-dropping backdrop.
A refreshing gelato punctuated my rest after the walk up to and through the gate to the town’s central square, or piazza. Afterwards, it took me only 30 minutes to walk every square foot within its walled space, and at every interior edge of the site open to view was a magnificent view of the steep, cavernous, and verdant terrain surrounding it.
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Above and below: walking through Civita di Bagnoregio, one can see it is almost entirely medieval in its appearance.
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The view outward from the edge of the town.
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Interestingly, it has been called “the dying city”, as the underlying clay foundation of the rocky spur that supports the town is eroding much faster than the volcanic tufa stone above the clay, seriously undermining its continuing stability. Centuries from now, unless measures are taken to rescue the town, its collapsed wonder will lie in ruins far below its present level. A sad future for a magnificent site.
Day 3: The Pilgrim’s Trail and Lake Bolsena
The Camino de Santiago pilgrims trail, also known as the Way of St. James, is Europe’s best known network of pilgrimage routes, leading to the shrine of the apostle James in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, where many believe the apostle James was ultimately buried. Somewhat less known but equally historic in its significance is theVia Francigena (“the road that comes from France”), an ancient pilgrimage route beginning at the Canterbury Cathedral in England and winding through France and Switzerland to Rome and then to Apulia, Italy, where the pilgrims would embark by sea for the Holy Land. In medieval times, this was the route used by those wishing to visit the Holy See and the tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul.
It was on a portion of this route, beginning at San Lorenzo Nuovo, that we began our walk on the third day. Gloriously picturesque, the trail took us through lush woodland as well as past rich farmland bristling with crops. Many points afforded us a scenic overlook of Lake Bolsena in the distance. All the while, Alessandro pointed out the variety of flora along the way, educating us with fascinating botanical information we never would have absorbed or enjoyed on any other conventional tour. Near the end of our hike, we passed several of the many agriturismo villas (agriculturally based operations or activities that bring visitors to a farm or ranch), ending with our arrival to meet our van and its open doors revealing a new assortment of drinks and snacks to re-energize and refresh us for the coming hours. As it was, it served as a welcome appetizer to the following delectable lunch we enjoyed in a local restaurant in the waterside resort town of Bolsena. Here we ordered food we likely never would have thought to eat back in the U.S. And somehow, the view of the glistening blue water of the lake only a few feet from our table made my meal taste better, a kind of visual seasoning.
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Above and below: on the trail of the Via Francigena.
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On the Lake
Anyone visiting Bolsena should not leave before taking a boat ride on the lake, which is exactly what we did following our lunch. On this day in early autumn, few tourists could be seen near the lake and around the docks where we boarded our vessel — small but easily spacious enough to accommodate our small group, and a launching point completely free of the madding crowd one would typically contend with during the high season.
The pilot navigated us across the breadth of the entire lake, motoring us almost within a stone’s throw of two major islets, each featuring a portrait of rocky geologic formations and historic or ancient structures perched atop the edges of dramatic cliff faces soaring above the lapping lake water below. Archaeologists have discovered human settlements on these islets extending back to Etruscan times.
After the boat ride, we made our way back to our accommodations for the evening.
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Above and below: Islets in the lake.
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Day 4: An avenue of cave dwellings, a hike along a woodland trail, and a sojourn in scenic Sorano
Traveling toward Sovana, among Italy’s “most beautiful villages,” we entered and traversed a verdant landscape of deep volcanic gorges with narrow plateaus, stopping first to begin our hike along a trail that took us by the numerous cave dwellings of Vitozza. Many of them were inhabited during medieval times, and even before, as domestic dwellings by families. I tried to imagine families of men, women and children living in these cavernous places, warming themselves by their fires during the cold season and using them as shelter from the elements, including the radiant heat of the sun during the warm seasons. Today, of course, they are vacant and silent, but there was still a haunting spirit that seemed to hover invisibly over these spaces.
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Above and below: caves along the trail to Vitozza, the medieval town.
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Alessandro discussing one of the caves with the group.
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Our hike along the cave trail led us eventually to branch off steeply upward to reach an area where once stood a medieval village, featuring the remains of two castles and a church. Traces of domestic structures and other small structures that once stood around on either side of them were long gone with the ravages of time. Though I knew, as we walked through the long grass and across the rich soil of a surface still damp with the previous day’s rain, archaeological remains of their foundations and other associated artifacts likely still lay scattered beneath my feet — waiting to be discovered by some future excavation project. The mystery of it captured my imagination.
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Above and below: remains of the first castle encountered on the walk.
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Remains of the second castle.
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Above and below: the Chiesaccia, or Church of S. Bartolomeo, one of three churches built in Vitozza in the second half of the 13th century,
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We hiked carefully down from here over rocky surfaces still moist from yesterday’s rain to make our way to the Lente River far below us. On the way, we came across a fascinating medieval period columbarium. It is today silent and devoid of birds. But, given its considerable structure, it must have been a very lively and productive facility for the people who lived in the nearby community centuries ago.
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The columbarium of Vitozza, just below and near the second castle remains.
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The Lente River is small. One could hardly think of it as a river. A good-sized creek would be more apt. But the lush, scenic woodland through which it wound and through which we traversed was a remarkable example of an almost fairytale-like forest environment that surrounded us. Stopping for a snack break of drinks and other hand-held tastes at a picnic table above the river was a welcome few moments for good conversation and a chance to put questions to Alessandro about the flora that enveloped us.
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Alessandro leads us down a tufa-cut passage.
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A view: hiking along the Lente.
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Sorano
Perhaps the biggest surprise of this journey for me was seeing the old village of Sorano. The motor coach approach from the end of our woodland river walk afforded a breathtaking view of a dramatic ancient-looking random assemblage of light-brown stone structures that straddled the steep slopes of a massive, craggy tufa spur. It was the kind of view one usually expects from a post card image that you know had to be doctored or photo shopped. But this was real. After enjoying a delicious three-course lunch in a local restaurant, we met with our local expert guide for the town walk. Carlo Rosati was a veritable storehouse of knowledge about Sorano, and he minced no words to convince me that this village was clearly one of Tuscany’s best kept secrets. It is not a well-known, high-demand tourist destination, but after seeing this place, I knew it should be — although to enjoy it, one needs to see it free of the press of any crowds. Words don’t do it justice, so included here are photographic images that illustrate what the written word cannot convey — though one has to see it in person to realize the full effect of the visual experience.
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Above and below: views of old Sorano. Difficult to get enough of the visual historic splendor.
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Peering up at the massive Orsini Fortress of Sorano.
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Interior view of the Orsini Fortress.
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“Sorano is one of the most interesting villages for ‘touching’ the Middle Ages,” says Carlo.
Indeed, the face of this village oozes the Middle Ages at every step, and it is this time period that is best preserved and evident in Sorano. However, more than 2500 years ago Sorano was likely a Villanovan settlement, a culture and people thought to be the first phase of the Etruscan culture, which left its historical traces in Sorano around the 3rd century BC, when the village was under the influence of the larger nearby Etruscan period city of Sovana.
Little is known about Sorano during the Roman period, but it emerges into the written record in 862 under Emperor Louis II, under the Aldobrandeschisuzerainty. Later, under Romano di Gentile Orsini, it became part of the Orsini fiefdom. After which its prominent hilltop fortress, the remains of which can be seen and visited today, was named. The fortress was frequently attacked by competing powers in the region because of its strategic position. Walking through the fortress overwhelmed me with its massive presence, and it was easy to see how the community could withdraw into the interior space of the structure during times of conflict and siege.
The village eventually became part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
Sorano had a significant jewish community during the Medieval period, and the remains of the structures that constituted its quarter within the village were well preserved, making our walk feel almost like a flashback into a time and space that never really vanished.
We ended the day with a retreat to our luxury accommodations at the resort in Sovana, with evening dining at a distinctive local restaurant, where special dishes gave us a taste of the unique fare it had to offer its guests.
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Day 5: Sovana: The Vie Cava and Cities of the Dead
Embarking early, we joined Carlo on a hike into the world of the Etruscans. This was a journey that relatively few people take, because it was an exploration of a largely unwritten story of ancient engineering. The area in which the towns of Sorano, Sovana,and Pitigliano, all neighboring settlements, is defined to a great extent by curious winding paths or passages known widely as Vie Cave (road and quarry), which were literally cut through the soft tufa stone, creating deep gorge-like trails framed on either side by high walls of the tufa stone. They were originally cut by the Etruscans, or even earlier peoples, and then continued to be cut or defined by later groups of people. Coined as the Hollow Paths by Carlo in his book, The Etruscans and the Hollow Paths*, these paths often mark passageways between and among the ancient rock-hewn burial chambers and tombs of the Etruscans, ancient features that equally define the area in abundance.
Carlo led us through some of these hollow paths, and along-side numerous shallow caves, clearly man-made to function as burial chambers or tombs for their dead, some larger and more elaborate than others, but all empty and silent. And if one listened very closely, one could almost hear the faint whispers of the dead calling us beckoningly from their earthly domiciles as we passed.
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Above and below: rock-cut cave tombs of the Etruscans.
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Our hike on this terrain, in the cool of the morning with the ground still wet and in places slippery from the overnight rain, eventually took us through the dramatic ancient (originally Etruscan) rock-cut tufa paths of the Via Cava de San Sebastiano to one of Sovana’s best-known Etruscan rock-hewn tombs, the Ildebranda Tomb.
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Above and below: the Vie Cava de San Sebastiano.
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Our group leader Alessandro leads the way through. He is pictured here for scale.
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Carlo, our guest historian, leads us down a Vie Cava path.
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Set and carved deeply and ornately into the tufa, it sat high on the face of one of the many rocky spurs that surround Sovana, Sorano and Pitigliano, overlooking the verdant craggy landscape beneath it. From our elevated perspective we could see the living town of Sovana in the near distance, despite the misty cloud cover in-between. Heavily eroded over more than 2200 years, the vestiges of this tomb’s original architectural appearance gave visual clues to how elaborate and decorative its facade was in its heyday.
“During this time period, the Etruscans built their tombs with the decorative element on the exterior, while the tomb interiors were plain and simple,” said Carlo. This was in contrast to many other Etruscan tombs of note, such as the famous painted tombs at Tarquinia, which featured elaborate decorative elements and wall paintings/frescoes in their interiors, with much plainer exteriors.
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Above and below: the Ildebranda Tomb.
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We proceeded down ancient steps and entered the tomb interior. Although spacious, it was dark and simple, and one could easily see where the body of the dead once laid within the sarcophagus, now absent, upon a raised section of the tomb interior. The last marks of the pick-axes used by the ancients to carve out the chamber from the tufa could still be seen on the walls and ceiling.
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Article Supplement
Who were the Etruscans?
The Etruscans were an ancient people who inhabited current day central Italy from around 900 BC to roughly 100 BC. They possessed a common language and culture but governed themselves independently through federations of city-states (three confederacies in all: Etruria (today’s Tuscany, Latium and Umbria), the Po Valley with the eastern Alps, and the area known today as Campania. At its greatest extent, Etruria covered what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, northern Lazio, the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.
The Etruscans were an indigenous population stemming from the Iron AgeVillanovan culture, which developed out of the late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture, part of the central European Urnfield culture system. The Etruscans dominated the Italian peninsula until the rise of Rome in the late 4th century BC. By 27 BC, the Etruscan territory was incorporated into the Roman Empire.
In the Etruscan political system, authority resided in its individual city-states, ruled by prominent families. In the hey-day of their power, the elite Etruscan families became very wealthy through trade with the Celts to the north and the Greeks to the south. Evidence for this was uncovered through archaeological excavations that uncovered large family tombs with luxury objects imported from Greece and other contemporaneous civilizations.
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Etruscan bronze chariot, circa 6th century BC. As exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rogers Fund, 1903.CCO 1.0 Universal, Wikimedia Commons
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Etruscan helmet. As exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum of Tarquinia.
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Etruscan painted tomb, excavated and preserved in Tarquinia, Italy.
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Because the Etruscan script and language remains largely undeciphered and elusive, any accurate written history of the Etruscans is sketchy, and most of what we know about them is derived from archaeological investigations, especially of the many tombs and the artifacts found within them.
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We ascended the steps out of the tomb into the pouring rain. This did not stop us from ascending more to another nearby tomb site, yet another iconic space carved from the tufa stone about 2300 years ago. Known as the Tomb of the Winged Demons, much of its facade has been lost or eroded away with time, but its elaborate decorative character still stands out, with its visual elements at least partially protected under a roof-shroud construction overhead. More evident as compared to the Ildebrand Tomb, this tomb afforded us a fascinating yet mystery-shrouded glimpse into the Etruscan concept of death, the afterlife and their vision of the Underworld. These winged figures, often referred to as ‘demons’ (though not in the conventional sense of demons as defined today) are usually a part of Etruscan funerary art and often associated with the goddess Vanth, a being connected to death and the underworld. Carlo gave us a rich and detailed interpretation of the iconography as it related to the mythology and religion of this ancient people. Unlike what we know about Greek and Roman religion and mythology, however, the Etruscan equivalent still remains comparatively vague.
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Above and below: facade and its associated elements of the Tomb of the Winged Demons.
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The Excavation
The region surrounding Sorano, Sovana and Pitigliano is a land rich in archaeological treasure, excavated and still-to-be excavated. The buried history spans more than 3,000 years, extending as far back as the Neolithic and even before civilization as we conventionally define it — Paleolithic times. But research has focused mostly on the human story here ranging between about 900 BC up to and through Renaissance times. We had the privilege of meeting with Dr. Luca Nejrotti, an archaeologist who has been conducting a field school excavation at the local site of “la Biagiola,” a multi-layered site that recently has yielded evidence of occupation by the Lombards, a germanic people who conquered and controlled most of the Italian peninsula between 568 and 774 AD, as well as evidence of occupation in other time periods. Our plans included visiting the actual excavation site, though rainy weather conditions precluded us from seeing the site. Nonetheless, a very fine little museum in Sovana showcased some of the artifacts recovered from the site, and it was in this location where Nejrotti addressed our group with an extremely informative review of the excavations and the major findings to date.
Day 6: Along the ancient trail, and Pitigliano
By the time we began to hike the trail from Sovana to Pitigliano, we had become accustomed to the surface irregularities and the ascending and descending nature of the paths. As before, the rock-cut passage in places was a reminder of the labor and care the ancients had taken to blaze their travel and connections through the terrain from each point or tomb to another, and from one significant location to another. In places it was like walking through a cavern with no ceiling, the space high above us open to the sky and the ground and walls around us like a work of nature’s sculptor. We met others along the way — a couple from Germany and an Italian family, the children at nearly a jog along a surface that required good walking sticks for older explorers.
After a delectable three-course lunch with fine Tuscan wines in Pitigliano, Carlo led us on a highly informative walk of this breathtakingly picturesque medieval hilltop town. Originally an Etruscan settlement, it is the largest of the trio of towns in this historic and ancient region. While every inch of street and historic construction captured my imagination, three sites stood prominently out for me. The first was the Duomo di Pitigliano; Cattedrale dei Santi Pietro e Paolo), a Roman Catholiccathedral dedicated to the Saints Peter and Paul. The cathedral exterior facade was impressive enough, until one steps inside, and then it is easy to see why the structure is a must-see when visiting this town. Restored in 1692–1702, its majestic interior space features a 1717 Baroque altar, an altarpiece in the choir depicting the Enthroned Madonna with Saints Peter and Francis (dated to 1494) by Guidoccio Cozzarelli and, painted in 1885, two large paintings by Pietro Aldi — Henry IV at Canossa and the Life of Ildeprando in Sovana. Pitigliano was also home to a flourishing Jewish community, consisting mostly of people fleeing from Rome during the Counterreformation persecutions. It was fascinating to see the rendered caves in which they worked and lived, which includes a ritual Passovermatzoh bakery. But the big story about this community was how, because of the newly promulgated racial laws under Nazi influence, the community is said to have escaped capture with the help ofChristian neighbors. We had the opportunity to step into the ornately designed 1995-restored synagogue of 1598 (although containing furnishings of the 17th and 18th centuries). I felt a reverence their unlike any other structure I entered during the walk.
Perhaps less known but equally fascinating was a small section of the town that had been preserved to showcase the archaeological excavations and research that had taken place here over the years. Although what we saw in this section represented only a small slice of what likely remained hidden and buried beneath throughout the town, it served as a reminder of the long history of occupation here, going back to at least early Etruscan times.
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Panoramic view of Pitigliano. Shadow Fixing, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
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The Duomo di Pitigliano (Pitigliano Cathedral).
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Typical street view in Pitigliano.
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A Unique Journey
When contemplating a getaway to Italy, I admit that my first thoughts revolved around seeing the iconic sites best known in the popular travel literature — places like the Colosseum, Pantheon and the Vatican in Rome, the great Duomo and Renaissance sites and art in Florence, the canals of Venice, the ancient remains of Pompeii, and the majestic lines and ocean views of the Amalfi coast. Without detracting from those incomparable sites, however, I found a more intimate and enriching and deeply satisfying magic in walking the countryside and getting ‘up close and personal’ with the ‘lesser known’ historic dream-like presence of the smaller settlements that define the heart of Italy. Not its magnificence, but its indescribable charm and warm allure that made, at least for me, an experience unlike any other traveling I had ever endeavored. The smaller group of traveling companions created a sense of camaraderie and ‘family’, if you will, that I could never obtain with the larger groups in which I previously traveled. Indeed, exploring this little group of people constantly around me on a daily basis was as much of an adventure as the sites and landscapes we traversed. And the act of bringing a mind-and-body healthy hike or walk to its completion each day along a verdant and historic path afforded a unique sense of endorphin-rich achievement.
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For readers who may be interested in joining a walking tour like this, see the Wayfaring Walks website for more information about the many other walks they offer around the world. Readers who are interested in the subject tour of this article (Etruscan Hilltop Towns) may find more information and a special discount offer for this tour at this page. Whatever walk you may choose, it is no exaggeration to say that I think you will find it to be a trip of a lifetime.
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The Guides
Indispensable to the experience is the educational and daily support elements the guides and special guest-lecturers bring to Wayfaring Walks journeys. On a daily basis, Alessandro Tombelli, our tour leader, and Andrea Formaleoni, our tour manager, brought their expertise to bear on making the Etruscan Hilltop Towns walk a stimulating, smooth, and stress-free experience. Along the way special guest lecturer/leaders like Carlo Rosati (Sorano, Sovana and Pitigliano) and Luca Nejrotti (Sovana) provided detailed, mind-enriching reviews of topics and places that only they could convey.
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Comments from tour participants
“I love the pace of the travel and the size of the group. The walk leader and walk manager are also a key part of Wayfaring travel. They are always adults with life experiences of their own and have a lot to offer. It is a different experience entirely than being led by college kids, which other walking groups often use.”
— Wendy Kersman
“I loved the walks in the beautiful countryside. That’s an absolute requirement for any of the walks I take. But I think the historian and archaeologist who joined us gave a depth and context to the experience that was special and wonderful…..and the staff that accompanies the walks, the care and thoughtfulness taken in designing the walks, and the quality of the accommodations and food.”
— Laura Godown
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*Rosati, Carlo, The Etruscans and the Hollow Paths, Moroni Editor, April 2013.
Cover Image, Top Left: Panoramic view of Pitigliano. Shadow Fixing, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Luca Mario Nejrotti, PhD, graduated in Medieval Archaeology at the University of Turin, with a thesis on the archaeology of architecture in fortified structures. He then pursued a PhD at Aix-en-Provence, focusing on medieval hydraulic installations. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with universities and heritage agencies, but he has always preferred independent practice, which has allowed him to explore and deepen his knowledge of different historical periods and contexts.
His interest in archaeological methods led him naturally to studying and teaching in the area between southern Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where the historical landscape features complex connections and relationships, and where one can “breathe” archaeology.
He has been an archaeologist (in pectore) since childhood, and what he has always loved about the profession is the investigative and exploratory aspect, but also the role archaeologists can play as mediators between the historical landscape, past communities, and present ones.
Since 2012, with the Association “Cultura e Territorio,” over which he presides and for which he serves as scientific director, he has run the B.I.S.A., “la Biagiola” International School of Archaeology in Sorano (GR). The school focuses on Landscape Archaeology and the excavation of the multi-layered site of “la Biagiola,” in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture. The school operates year-round, with sessions in February, May, July-August, and October.
“La Biagiola” International School of Archaeology (B.I.S.A.), managed by the Associazione “Cultura e Territorio” (ACT), has once again showcased its unique approach to archaeological exploration, merging research, education, and preservation. After years of striving to become a leading reference in archaeology in the Maremma del Tufo, B.I.S.A. has now established itself as a true beacon for local institutions and communities, playing a pivotal role in safeguarding and promoting cultural heritage.
In 2015, B.I.S.A. students climbed the steep walls of the “Cavone” via cava (see below*) to recover and document the remnants of archaic Etruscan tombs and to safeguard these structures from the degradation caused by vegetation and soil accumulation. In 2016, they undertook the excavation and documentation of the lost dromos of the “Tomba dei Demoni Alati” (Tomb of the Winged Demons) in Sovana.
These initiatives complemented the ongoing investigations at “la Biagiola” and contributed to a broader landscape archaeology project in the Fiora River Valley:
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The 2024 Summer Campaign
During the summer of 2024, the school embarked on an ambitious program in collaboration with the Archaeological Park “Città del Tufo”, revisiting six Etruscan(see below**) tombs along the Via Cava di San Sebastiano. From August 1 to August 22, 2024, participants, including professional archaeologists, students, and local collaborators, worked tirelessly on-site. Their efforts were supported by personnel from the Municipality of Sorano and the ZOE Social Cooperative, concessionaires for the Archaeological Park, whom we would like to thank here warmly for their initiative and support.
These tombs, previously looted during Roman times and later subjected to sub-standard (by today’s professional assessment) excavations in the 19th and 20th centuries, offered unique challenges and opportunities for modern archaeology. This double history of disturbance left behind a trail of clues for modern archaeologists to uncover. Roman looters mainly targeted precious metals and jewelry, while 19th- and 20th-century excavators sought intact and elaborately decorated pottery. The earlier interventions often bypassed architectural features such as dromoi (entrance corridors) as excavators worked hastily, leaving behind crucial evidence for modern, meticulous archaeologists.
This summer’s work yielded significant results, including:
Chronological Confirmation: ceramic fragments from the tombs confirmed their dating to the 7th–6th centuries BCE.
Architectural Documentation: using advanced SLAM laser scanning, the team created detailed 3D maps of the tombs, highlighting variations in niche arrangements, funerary beds, and moisture control features.
New Discoveries: a previously undocumented via cava near the tombs was identified, adding to the rich tapestry of the region’s landscape archaeology.
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The survey using SLAM technology.
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Workshop on 3D modeling.
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The Tombs
The tombs, located on a modest terrace northwest of the Via Cava di San Sebastiano, are arranged in two tiers (however, we also identified a row of four tombs at a lower level, which we have currently decided to leave buried for safety reasons):
Upper Level: Tombs 1, 2, and 4.
Lower Level: Tombs 3, 5, and 6.
Despite the absence of intact archaeological deposits in most structures, the team successfully identified secondary ceramic fragments meticulously recovered from the basal levels, providing invaluable data on the material culture of the Fiora and Albegnavalleys.
The students also enjoyed distinguishing the layers of the first looting from the Roman era from those of the more recent one, caused by amateur archaeologists.
Highlights included:
Tomb 2: distinguished by its architectural refinement, including a large rectangular niche opposite the entrance and stepped access.
Tomb 3: unique evidence of reuse was observed, including an enlarged entrance and an extended dromos, with a drainage channel added at a later stage.
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The Via Cava di San Sebastiano, one of the most evocative in the area.
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The entrance to the first two tombs after excavation: note the two intersecting dromoi and the two sealing stones broken at the top by Roman looters.
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Last but not least, anyone involved in archaeology knows it — the most important discoveries happen on the last day of excavation, preferably in the final hour, and even better under a looming thunderstorm:
Tomb 5: this tomb revealed two primary-context features:
A ritual pit containing a double-handled bowl and four varied dishes.
A funerary niche sealed with terracotta tiles, containing nine ceramic vessels, spindle whorls, and a bronze fragment.
And here is the proof, beyond the wealth of scientific data recovered from the other tombs: the necropolises of Sovana always hold a surprise! What makes this discovery truly extraordinary is the presence of a votive pit, unexpectedly and exceptionally well-preserved through the centuries, lying just a few centimeters beneath the surface. This represents an exceptional testimony to the religious practices associated with funerary offerings.
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Excavating the ritual pit.
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The funerary niche after the removal of the tiles.
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Bridging the Past and Future
The summer’s work at B.I.S.A. underscores its dual mission of education and research. Participants gained hands-on experience in advanced archaeological techniques, including 3D scanning and stratigraphic analysis, while contributing to a growing body of knowledge about the region’s history. The findings, including architectural surveys and ceramic typologies, will inform future studies and support the creation of a comprehensive catalog of archaic tombs in the Sovana area.
By aligning academic rigor with community engagement, B.I.S.A. continues to demonstrate that archaeology is not just about uncovering artifacts but about connecting people to their shared heritage: a bridge between the past and the future.
Readers may learn more about the programs and the archaeological field school here.
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The student team: thank you all!
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*The vie cave (hewn roads)
The hewn roads, carved into the volcanic tuff, were sophisticated pathways designed to connect the plateaus to nearby stream courses. These trenches often followed natural gullies, creating a more gradual and convenient approach to the steep elevation changes characteristic of the region. This intricate network not only linked major centers but also facilitated communication between smaller, scattered settlements. Along many of these routes, necropolises were established, taking advantage of the accessibility provided by the vie cave. However, not all such structures are directly associated with funerary sites, indicating a multifaceted use of these pathways.
Today, the vie cave are an evocative feature of the Maremma del Tufo landscape. Their continuous use over the centuries, for maintenance and because of natural erosion, has significantly deepened these trenches, with some reaching depths of dozens of meters. This contrasts sharply with their original appearance, which, as seen in abandoned vie cave, was far shallower.
The interplay between natural and human influences has transformed these ancient pathways into dramatic and captivating landmarks of the countryside.
**The Etruscans
The Etruscans were an ancient people who inhabited current day central Italy from around 900 BC to roughly 100 BC. They possessed a common language and culture but governed themselves independently through federations of city-states (three confederacies in all: Etruria (today’s Tuscany, Latium and Umbria), the Po Valley with the eastern Alps, and the area known today as Campania. At its greatest extent, Etruria covered what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, northern Lazio, the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.
As an indigenous population, they stemmed from the Iron AgeVillanovan culture, which developed out of the late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture, part of the central European Urnfield culture system. The Etruscans dominated the Italian peninsula until the rise of Rome in the late 4th century BC. By 27 BC, the Etruscan territory was incorporated into the Roman Empire.
In the Etruscan political system, authority resided in its individual city-states, ruled by prominent families. In the hey-day of their power, the elite Etruscan families became very wealthy through trade with the Celts to the north and the Greeks to the south. Evidence for this was uncovered through archaeological excavations that uncovered large family tombs with luxury objects imported from Greece and other contemporaneous civilizations.
The history of the Etruscan civilization is divided into distinct periods based on archaeological evidence and cultural developments:
Villanovan Period (ca. 900-700 BCE): this proto-Etruscan phase marks the emergence of a stratified society in central Italy. Evidence includes cremation burials in biconical urns and settlements characterized by small, hut-like structures.
Metallurgical advancements and the introduction of ironworking are key features of this era.
Orientalizing Period (ca. 700-580 BCE): marked by increased contact with the Greek, Phoenician, and Near Eastern cultures. This period saw the rise of urban centers such as Targuinia, Veii, and Cerveteri. Luxury goods, monumental tombs, and the widespread adoption of imported artistic motifs define this era, reflecting the growing wealth and complexity of Etruscan society.
Archaic and Classical Periods (ca. 580-300 BCE): the height of Etruscan power, with large-scale urbanization and the construction of monumental public works, including temples and city walls. Etruscan art and architecture show significant Greek influence, while their political institutions adapted to manage expanding trade networks.
Hellenistic Period (ca. 300-50 BCE): a phase that sees Roman expansion absorbing Etruscan cities. This period is characterized by a blend of Etruscan and Roman cultural elements, the adaptation of Etruscan religious practices, and the eventual assimilation into Roman hegemony.
Freelance writer, researcher and photographer, Georges Fery (georgefery.com) addresses topics from history, culture, and beliefs to daily living of ancient and today’s indigenous societies of Mesoamerica and South America. His articles are published online at travelthruhistory.com, ancient-origins.net and popular-archaeology.com, and in the quarterly magazine Ancient American (ancientamerican.com). In the U.K. his articles are found in mexicolore.co.uk.
The author is a fellow of the Institute of Maya Studies instituteofmayastudies.org, Miami, FL and The Royal Geographical Society, London, U.K. (rgs.org). He is a member in good standing with the Maya Exploration Center, Austin, TX (mayaexploration.org) the Archaeological Institute of America, Boston, MA (archaeological.org),NFAA-Non Fiction Authors Association (nonfictionauthrosassociation.com) and the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC. (americanindian.si.edu).
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Professor Frank J. Korn has retired from his teaching position on the Classical Studies faculty at Seton Hall University.He is a Fulbright Scholar at the American Academy in Rome and the author of nine books on various aspects of the Eternal City.He is listed in Marquis Who’s Who as “a notable classical educator and writer.”Recipient of the Princeton Prize for Distinguished Teaching, he resides with his wife Camille in Scotch Plains, N.J.The couple’s three sons –Frank, Ronald, and John and their families live nearby.His latest book–Below Rome, the Story of the Catacombs–which he co-authored with his wife, is available on Amazon or from the publisher, St. Johann Press, Haworth, N.J.
In Rome one finds the world’s most exquisite exclamation point:the towering obelisk which punctuates the symmetrical splendor and baroque beauty of St. Peter’s Square.
Climbing nearly a hundred feet into the Vatican sky, the reddish granite needle is surmounted by an iron cross which is said to contain a fragment of the True Cross.Thus Pope Sixtus V had these words engraved on the pedestal:
ECCE CRUCEM DOMINI
CHRISTUS VINCIT CHRISTUS REGNAT
CHRISTUS IMPERAT
(Behold the Cross of the Lord.Christ Conquers,
Christ reigns, Christ rules.)
This is but one of twenty-two obelisks that were brought back from Egypt to Rome in Imperial times, thirteen of which have survived to our day.St. Peter’s Square’s great centerpiece, whose hieroglyphics sang the praises of King Menephta (1420-1400 B.C.), was transported from the banks of the Nile to the banks of the Tiber by order of Caligula.He used it to adorn the spina of the hippodrome in Ager Vaticanus – the Vatican meadows–where it became the mute witness to much spectacle and much savagery, including, perhaps, the crucifixion of the Apostle Peter.
Obelisks are tall, slender, monolithic quadrangular monuments that constitute a typical expression of Egyptian art:solar symbols.These stone shafts of Aswan granite gradually tapered to a pyramid-shaped apex and were often engraved on their flat sides with picture-writings exalting the deeds of this or that god or pharaoh.In Egypt, obelisks of varying dimensions stood–often in pairs–before the entrances to temples and palaces, and were considered sacred to the Sun.
Not content with the art treasures and other valuable booty which they had conveyed from all parts of the classical world to Rome, the emperors went so far as to have their thunderous conquering legions remove the multi-ton obelisks from the elegant pedestals, whereon they had majestically rested for centuries, and, no matter the enormouslychallenging difficulty, haul them over land and sea, to the city of the seven hills.All this was done to testify to the conquests of vaunted Roman arms, and, more importantly, to the emperors’ self-proclaimed greatness.
Augustus was the first to be charmed by these already ancient monuments and in 10 B.C. he confiscated two of them–one from the tomb of Ramses II (also known as Ramses the Great) who ruled as pharaoh from 1279 to 1213 B.C. in Heliopolis.The overseas transport of the first–78 feet and 400 tons–proved to be a matter of such unprecedented difficulty that an immense ship with an extremely long, wide deck had to be designed and built expressly for that purpose. The herculean efforts of as many as three hundred oarsmen were required to propel this unique vessel with its recumbent cargo, ballasted by sandbags beyond count to prevent it from shifting and/or rolling over and sending itself and the ship to the depths of the Mediterranean.The last leg of the voyage had to be completed on land, thus halfway up the Tiber the hefty cargo had to be transferred to a trahea, a land vehicle called, in English, a sledge, mounted on two, maybe four, well-shaved smooth runners designed for transporting heavy loads over sand and soil andstreets, and which was pulled via thick hemp-fiber ropes by many thousands of able-bodied men.There were massive crowds of on-lookers as the sledge was hauled into the city through the Ostian Gate of the Servian Walls.The proud and pleased Augustus ordered this war-prize to be installed on the spina of the Circus Maximus.He had coins and medals struck in commemoration of the various stages of the whole enterprise.
The second obelisk, 72 feet tall, was a millennium younger and paid tribute to Pammeticus II.Augustus had this one placed down in the heart of the Campus Martius to serve as a gigantic sun-dial.Pliny (XXXVI.15) informs us:
“Ei, qui est in Campo, divus Augustus
addidit mirabilem usum ad deprendendas solis
umbras dierumque ac noctium ita magnitudinis
strato lapide ad longitudinem obelisci,
cui par fieret umbra brumae confectae
die sexta hora … “
(That obelisk standing in the Campus was employed in
a remarkable way for the sake of gauging the shadows
of the sun and indicating the length of days and nights….)
By the way, both Augustan trophies took up new residences in Rome in the late 1700’s–the older in Piazza del Popolo, the younger on Monte Citorio in front of the Parliament building.The one in the piazza rises much higher these days; standing on a new base it stretches well over a hundred feet into the air and is surrounded by four lions–also brought back from Egypt– spouting water into travertine basins.
In A.D. 40, Claudius had two more of these granite shafts shipped to Rome.This pair of two-thousand-year-old obelisks were set up to serve as ornaments for the Tomb of Augustus.There they stood as sentries flanking the mausoleum’s entrance and reaching forty–five feet in height.
In 1589, Pope Sixtus V put the renowned architect Domenico Fontana in charge of moving one of these to the summit of the Quirinal Hill, which was then cherished for its breathtaking panorama of the city, its soft air and cool breezes, prompting Sixtus to build a palace there to be used as a papal summer residence.In 1870 this property was seized by the King of the “New Italy” and declared the Royal Palace. Today’s post World War II Italy uses the splendid palazzo as the home of the nation’s (largely figurehead) president.On its new tall pedestal, and positioned above the huge Fountain of the Dioscuri (Horse Tamers) and capped with a cross, the obelisk stretches 95 feet into the Roman firmament.The fountain’s colossal statues representing the Gemini, Castor and Pollux, once graced the then nearby Baths of Constantine, says the inscription:
…E PROXIMIS CONSTANTINIANIS THERMIS…
The other monolith of the Augusteum was moved to its current location, on the Esquiline Hill, facing the rear of the apse of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.On its new base and crowned with a cross, it now climbs to a height of 82 feet.
As the first century A.D. drew to a close, the Emperor Domitian of the Flavian Dynasty increased the city’s obelisk inventory by three, two of which were rather small as these things go (19 feet high).These adorned the Eternal City’s Temple of Isis and Serapis.(Yes, even the Egyptian religion found its way to Rome.)The third and largest one (51 feet high) Domitian had hauled up to his country villa in the Alban Hills. The villa still survives, but in ruins.(This area is now the delightful village of Castel Gandolfo.)In 1657 the architect Bernini had the obelisk carted down into the city where he re-erected it in Piazza Navona as the crowning glory of his spectacular Fountain of the Four Rivers.
A decade later, Bernini placed one of the two smaller Domitian trophies on the back of his beautifully carved elephant in the center of Piazza Minerva, where there had stood, in antiquity, a stately temple to that Roman goddess of wisdom and war.This site was an altogether fitting choice inasmuch as this little obelisk, and its twin, had stood in homage back home before the shrine of Neith, the Egyptian goddess of…wisdom and war.A fervent admirer of the ancient civilization and culture of the Pharaohs, Bernini was saying with his symbolism that “It would take the strength of an elephant to sustain the brilliance of the Egyptians.”
Just a block away we find the twin of this elephant-riding stele, in Piazza della Rotonda, so-called because of the round temple that anchors one end of the charming square, the ancient, virtually perfectly preserved, Pantheon which, as its Greek name suggests, honors all the gods of pagan Rome.The inscription on the base has this to say about the obelisk, which is wed to an endlessly splashing fountain:
CLEMENS XI PONT MAX
FONTIS ET FORI
ORNAMENTO
ANNO SAL MDCCXI
PONTIF XI
(Clement the Eleventh SUPREME PONTIFF gave
this as an ornament for the fountain
and the square in the year of Salvation 1711,
the eleventh year of his Pontificate)
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The Pantheon and the Fontana del Pantheon in Rome, with obelisk topping the famous fountain. Ank Kumar, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
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Continuing the tradition of obelisk-collecting, Hadrian (117-138) brought home from his sojourn in Egypt four more, scattering them about his capital.The grandest and most graceful of these, 84 feet tall, he placed in the bucolic gardens of Sallust and dedicated it mournfully to his teenaged catamite, his stunningly attractive Greek lover, Antinous.This memorial, with a cross on top increasing its height, now looks out over Piazza del Popolo, from its lofty perch on the Pincio Terrace.For centuries, the Romans have favored this site for their evening promenade.(The locals maintain that if you have not seen the sunset from the Pincio, then you have not really been to Rome.)
Another Hadrianic trophy rises, since 1789, out in front of the twin towered church of Trinita dei Monti, at the top of the elegant, cascading Spanish Steps.
The last Egyptian obelisk to find its way to Urbs Aeterna did so under the direction of the Emperor Constantius, in A.D. 357.The inscriptions carved upon this massive monolith (108 feet tall and weighing over 400 tons) refer to the time of Pharaoh Thotmes IV, whose reign began in 1565 B.C.Thus it is quite possible that Moses beheld and admired it standing in front of the Temple of the Sun in Thebes.In A.D. 1588 it was hauled from its original Roman site, the Circus Maximus, down the narrow streets past the Church of St. Gregory the Great and around the gutted shell of the Flavian Amphitheater–more commonly known as the Colosseum–to the Piazza Laterano, near the side entrance to the Basilica of St. John.3,500 years ago it had slumbered on in the sultry quiet languor of Theban afternoons.In our madcap early Twenty First Century, it now looks down daily at uncountable numbers of honking Fiats that scurry in kamikaze-like fashion around its base.
Over on the Coelian Hill, a public park called the Villa Coelimontana houses an obelisk, but only a small part of it hails from Egypt.Yet the park merits a visit for its stupendous terrace with a superb vista and two long avenues lined with helm oaks and boxwood that provide lovely outdoor shady galleries.A perfect oasis in the summer for a picnic lunch in the cool air amid multi-colored flower displays.
Not to be overlooked is yet another monument from Cleopatra’s land.Right outside Stazione Termini, the city’s modern railroad station, is yet one more authentic obelisk of Ramses the Great, centering the vast Piazza dei Cinquecento named for the five hundred Italian soldiers killed at Dogali in 1887, as mentioned on the inscription of the tastefully executed pedestal.On the four sides of the 19 foot high obelisk are hieroglyphics in a fine state of preservation.An early twentieth century classicist translates one side for us:“Ramses, loved by Ammon from Heliopolis, the Seat of Splendor; Lord of the Diadems, loved by the god Tum, Lord of Heliopolis.”
……….
Though all of this was part of the legacy of Imperial Rome, the modern capital had something to say about the subject of obelisks. There are many imitations, not of Aswan granite but of various types of “homegrown” stone from myriad quarries across Italy:Travertine from the Rome outskirts, Carrara marble from the hills of Tuscany, and a pinkish granite from the Alpine heights of Baveno that overlook the dreamy Lago Maggiore way up north in the region of Piemonte.From the last locale, in 1842, Alessandro, scion of the patrician Torlonia family, ordered two, thirty-meters tall, obelisks to be hewn and transported, at great expense, via roads, rivers, and the Adriatic Sea, to the Abruzzo region, thence to Roma Aeterna.These stone wonders the loyal son had installed in the lush gardens of the Villa Torlonia, dedicating them to the memory of his pater and mater.
In 1959 the city government paid high, very high, i.e., tribute to the late, great Guglielmo Marconi with a concrete obelisk 147 feet tall, which was veneeredwith 92 marble panels of basreliefs, showing the life and times of the genius.It reposes on the island of a roundabout in EUR, just a few miles west of the ancient center of Rome.
In anticipation of the 1960 Olympic Games to be hosted by Rome, Il Duce had built, at the upper bank of the Tiber, a sprawling sports complex, at the front entrance of which stood, and still stands, an impressive 57 feet tall obelisk of Carrara Marble, which on its monumental base soars to twice that height, with finely engraved letters in vertical order that spell out;MUSSOLINI DUX.
Then there is the elegant boulevard that leads straight from the river to St. Peter’s Basilica, the Via della Conciliazione, built from 1929 to 1939 as a gift from the Italian state to the Vatican to commemorate the Reconciliation between the two with the signing of the Lateran Concordat, which resulted in the new autonomy and authority of the Pope over his new very miniature country.Just in time for the Jubilee Year of A.D. 1950, the broad thoroughfare, just short of a half mile long, was spruced up with new lamp posts lining each side.These were hewn in obelisk form, each with an old fashioned lantern topping it off.Again a touch of Egypt in Rome, the Nile once more flowing into the Tiber.
Whatever else can be said about the Romans, they were great adapters of the lands they conquered.They obtained the idea of domes from the Etruscans, of columns from the Greeks, of obelisks from the Egyptians.(There is even a pyramid in Rome!)
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Now back to the world’s most exquisite exclamation point:the obelisk in St. Peter’s Square.As mentioned at the start, this imported monument’s first site in Rome was the dividing island of the horse- racing stadium in the Vatican fields.Though the arena eventually disappeared over the centuries, the obelisk somehow survived the barbarian invasions and remained standing in the original spot.In 313 this public land was given to Pope Miltiades by Constantine.On these 108 acres the Vatican we know today, as the seat of the Catholic Church, evolved.In 1586 Pope Sixtus V ordered the “trophy” moved about 300 meters to the center of St. Peter’s Square.
By this time, however, the technique and know-how of such a task was still shaky and uncertain at best.Sixtus turned to the architect Fontana to supervise this daunting, dangerous, and risky engineering feat.With beams, ropes, and scaffolding, along with windlasses, hundreds of horses, and a thousand or so laborers, the unwieldy 380-ton stele was, over the course of weeks, successfully removed from its base and towed ever so slowly on a flatbed ‘truck’ to its new position.
All that was left was the need to figure out a safe way to raise it back upright.After days of planning, the date was set for the installation.This project drew vast crowds of curious Romans and tourists to the site.Anticipating this, the Pope had forewarned would-be spectators, via signs all around town, that strict silence was to be observed so that the workers would not be distracted and could clearly hear Fontana’s directions.And …anyone uttering a single word would be put to death.
Back to work went the ropes, the horses, the windlasses, and the workmen to ease the obelisk into an upright stance on a new pedestal.When the granite giant reached upward to about a 45 degree angle, however, those in attendance froze in horror as the ropes began to give off smoke from all the stress and friction, and stretch out near to the point of snapping.Everything came to a standstill for hours as the obelisk teetered on the brink of thundering down and shattering into a million pieces.A sailor in the crowd, who knew how to deal with ropes from his years on sailing vessels shouted:“Acqua alle funi!”–pour water on the ropes.He was at once arrested but Fontana thought the suggestion worth the risk and ordered buckets of cold water from a nearby aqueduct to be splashed up and down the smoking straining cables.
It worked!Pope Sixtus was delighted and, of course, immediately pardoned the sailor, named Bresca, promising him whatever reward he desired, The hero of the day said that his family had property in Bordighera, a town on the Italian riviera, a region that abounded in palm trees, and that his relatives would all love the honor of supplying the palm leaves for Palm Sunday services at St. Peter’s.This request was granted.To this day the Bresca family’s descendants still have that privilege.
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Across the ages these amazingly durable and resilient granite shafts have changed their religious affiliation three times.They came into existence honoring the deities of Egypt, especially the Sun god.In time they switched their homage to deified Roman rulers.Today, each crowned with a cross, proclaims, in eloquent silence, the triumph of Christianity over its persecutors.In a city chock full of antiquities, it can rightly be said that in all of Eternal Rome, the most eternal things are the monuments from Egypt.The Roman Colosseum is approaching its 2000th birthday but is merely a decrepit shell of its former self, while the Egyptian obelisk in Piazza Laterano, reaching 108 feet into the blue, is nearly twice that age but looks to be still in the prime of life, as do its granite siblings throughout town.
Cover Image, Top Left: The obelisk of St. Peter’s Square. Walkerssk, Pixabay
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What follows is the latest in a series of interviews of Professor Paul Cartledge on some of the most iconic wonders of ancient Greece, published exclusively for Popular Archaeology Magazine.
RM (Richard Marranca): Adjacent to the Acropolis is the ancient Greek Agora: could you tell us something of what went on there, and why it is worth visiting today?
PC (Paul Cartledge): Agora means ‘place of gathering’. What the Athenians gathered to do here were politics and commerce. The space was filled with, on one hand, market stalls selling almost anything under the sun – fresh and dried produce, manufactured goods, sex, human slaves; and on the other hand, there were political buildings, such as the Council Chamber, lawcourts, and mint. Looming over it is a remarkably well-preserved temple, contemporary with the Parthenon, built in honor of the Olympian craftsman god Hephaestus. Originally, the Agora ground had also been used for graves, and over time many wells were built to tap and store water. Excavations by the American School of Classical Studies/Athens, ongoing since 1931, have unearthed both remarkable graves and grave goods, and a host of political objects (juror’s tokens, weights and measures, terracotta water-jars for measuring the time allowed to speakers in the courts, ostraca potsherds). All are brilliantly displayed in the Rockefeller-funded Agora Museum, which mimics a genuine ancient Stoa (Portico, rectangular colonnaded building) donated to the Athenians by King Attalus II of Pergamum (220-138 BCE) in northwest Anatolia.
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Current excavations of the north side of the ancient Athenian Agora. George E. Koronaios, CCO 1.0, Wikimedia Commons
RM:The Kerameikos Cemetery – such a storied history. Wasn’t that where Pericles delivered the very famous Funeral Oration and where the Sacred Way (road to Eleusis) began? Can you unpack that a little?
PC:Kerameikos means Potters’ Quarter – whence our English word ‘ceramic’. Athens was blessed with exceptional claybeds nearby at Maroussi (ancient Amarousion) and an abundance of spring water to turn it in to potters’ clay. But the Quarter became even more famous as the location of Athens’s principal civic cemetery. This was indeed where Pericles in 431 BCE delivered one of his Funeral Orations (the one that’s given an approximate rendering by the contemporary Athenian historian Thucydides, who couldn’t of course reproduce it word for word). Like the Agora, the Kerameikos boasts an unbroken grave series going back into the prehistoric Late Bronze Age well before 1000 BCE. Like the Agora Museum, the Kerameikos Museum is a faithful record of what first German and then Greek archaeologists have uncovered there.
RM:Can you give us some of the highlights of the cemetery and who is buried there?
PC:The Kerameikos grave goods enable archaeologists and archaeohistorians such as myself to trace an unbroken evolution of style in painted pottery from prehistoric to early historic. Special mention must go to a quite recently discovered 6th-century BCE marble Sphinx. Originally a composite male figure (lion’s body, eagle’s wings, human head), the Sphinx was transgendered by the Greeks into a female monster no one wanted to have to tussle with (as Oedipus did – successfully). A bonus are the often elaborate grave monuments that can still be viewed in situ, for example that of the young Athenian cavalryman Dexileōs, who died fighting against Sparta near Corinth in 394; or the collective grave of the Spartans who died at Athens in 403, attempting unsuccessfully to keep Athens under the brutal control of a narrow anti-democrat regime later nicknamed ‘the 30 Tyrants’.
RM:Can you dig a little into the funerary practices of the Greeks?
PC: Greeks both inhumed (buried) and cremated their kindred dead. And as in the case of Pericles’s Funeral Oration, they also held collective, civic funeral ceremonies honoring the dead in war (their ashes placed in cedar coffins). The purpose of the funerary rites was twofold: both to ensure a safe passage for the dead persons down below the earth into Hades (Underworld) and to provide a site of memory at which relatives and later descendants could gather to pay their respects. Some exceptionally wealthy graves were powerful physical monuments, still visible today (above). Most were simple cists but usually containing grave goods to accompany the dead on their passage below. Commemorative ceremonies were performed at the grave – the pouring of a libation of oil or wine, the eating of a funeral feast – at fixed intervals after the burial. The ancient pagan Greeks had a sobering adage: call no one happy until you have seen how they died. A ‘good’ death was one that capped off a good life.
RM:Recently, you mentioned the newly opened museum in Thessaloniki. I haven’t been to Thessaloniki at all and would love to hear about it.
PC:The city of Thessaloniki, modern Greece’s second after Athens (though it took a century more for Thessaloniki to escape the Ottoman empire and join the modern Greek state), was founded originally in 315 BCE by the Macedonian warlord Cassander. He named it after his wife, a daughter of Philip II and so half-sister to Alexander the Great, whose own name celebrated Philip’s victory (nike) over the territory of Thessaly adjoining Macedonia on the south.
Thessaloniki boasts an excellent Archaeological Museum, which in 2026 is due to be joined at last by a huge Holocaust Museum commemorating the fact that until the 1940s, when they were systematically murdered by the occupying Nazis, the well over 50,000 Sephardic Jewish inhabitants amounted to almost half the city’s total population. The new, 2024 Museum is a museum of Thessaloniki’s 23 centuries but it is built down, not up – three of its levels are subterranean. Since Thessaloniki became Thessalonica after the Roman conquest, the Museum will also house part of that city’s main drag, the Decumanus Maximus, discovered when digging the city’s new metro train system. That dig yielded some 300,000 objects, and building the Museum cost 3 billion euros. Here begins the archaeological controversy: treasures were sliced horizontally and vertically before being stitched together again for display. That didn’t go down well with many professional Greek archaeologists.
RM:I recall the French archaeologist Théeophile Homolle who excavated in the late 1800s at Delphi. Can you give us some of the highlights about this breathtaking place and its oracle? From where did the Pythia (snake priestess) derive her power?
PC: Homolle (1848-1925) had first excavated on Delos in the 1870s before he as Director of the French School 1891-3 initiated the – continuing – French excavations on the site of Delphi. Looked at one way, Delphi was one ginormous war-memorial. Greeks alas didn’t fight only against non-Greeks — very much not, and several of the largest or most important monuments were dedicated at Delphi by one state as an in-your-face reply to another! I prefer not to think about that too much but to visit the superb newish Museum, in which one can find on show the most delicately painted wine-goblets and small bronze figurines alongside the armor and weapons stripped from enemies and dedicated permanently to Apollo. The oracular priestess of Apollo at Delphi wasn’t called the Pythia because she was in any way serpentine, but because the site as a whole was sometimes also known as ‘Pytho’; that title commemorating the huge python that in myth Apollo had slain in order to gain control of the numinous place.
RM:Can we journey to Delos, which holds vast importance for myth and history? Can you mention a few highpoints — including the Delian League?
PC: Delos, like Delphi, is a ‘French site’, that is open exclusively to archaeologists sponsored by the French School. They have been doing astonishing work on this small (3.43 sq. kilometers) island at the heart of the Cyclades chain for over 150 years. Like Delphi, Delos was sacred to Apollo – but not only to him. His twin sister Artemis, born with him to Leto actually on the island, shared the veneration. Unlike Delphi, though, Delos was relatively inaccessible, and from time to time external powers took measures to make it even more so.
Of all those foreign powers the most successful was Athens, which established an annual Delia festival involving sending a sacred mission from Athens to perform religious rituals on the island. In the 5th century indeed the Athenians made Delos the spiritual as well as mundane heart of a new multistate, anti-Persian alliance, the so-called ‘Delian League’. Much of the island’s agricultural land was then directly administered by special Athenian officials called amphictyons. Visitors to the island will be immediately struck by a terrace of 9-12 7th-century BCE marble lions (the best Greek marble came from two other Cycladic islands, Naxos and Paros) arranged beside a Sacred Way, echoing that of Delphi. An early Hymn to Apollo manages to combine his links to both Delos and Delphi in one poem.
RM:Can you highlight some of what’s in the museum?
PC: The Delos Museum, first opened in 1904, has just reopened after a period of closure for renovation. The sculpture hall is a sight to see. As is the marble statue-group of North Wind god Boreas abducting (probably a euphemism) Oreithyia, a daughter of Athens’s mythical founding king Erechtheus, in order to make her his wife. (Marriage by rape was a regular feature of ancient Greek mythology.) An Athenian work of the end of the 5th century BCE, the group originally formed an acroterion of the Temple of the Athenians: a combined figure perched atop one of the Temple’s two pediments for all to see from afar.
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The left front part of the first hall of archaic statues, view from the entrance. Museum of Delos. Zde, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
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RM:Last year, we had our Olympics interview in Popular Archaeology. Can we revisit this place, including what’s left of the physical location?
PC: Olympia, sacred to Zeus of Mount Olympus (rising over 10,000 feet high in Macedonia, north Greece), was, unlike Delphi, an exclusively religious site and space. It lay out of the way in northwest Peloponnese, and not very near to a convenient port (Kyllene). So exactly how it came to be as famous and indispensable as it had become by the 8th century BCE and remained so for the next 14 centuries remains a bit of a puzzle… As already mentioned, the Olympic Games were locked into a Circuit of games festivals, but the Olympics were the first and always the most important of the four. Zeus had a consort, possibly a rival, in his sister-wife Hera, whose temple is actually earlier than Zeus’s, which was not built until the 450s.
By then the Games had been held every four years for at least 250 years. (The official date of the first Olympics is what we call 776 BCE, but only one event was then staged, the 200 meter dash, and that remained the sole event until 720.) Absolutely everything that the Greeks did in the sphere of either religion or athletics anywhere at any time is represented, in spades, at Olympia. Sadly the site was vulnerable to earthquakes and floods, which eventually obliterated it, but from the 1870s – same time as and in rivalry with the French School – the German Archaeological Institute began the campaigns of excavation, reconstruction, and interpretation that they continue to this day.
Not to be missed within the most sacred part of the site, the Altis grove, is of course the Stadium. The horse-race course lay elsewhere and hasn’t yet been properly rediscovered. The Games consisted of just 9 events, men only, though women might own the horses or chariots that competed in the Hippodrome. For all events the prize (there was only one – no silver or bronze medals) was just an olive wreath – there were no value-prizes awarded at any of the Circuit Games.
Like Delphi, Olympia too was a gigantic war-memorial site; and as at Delphi the Olympia Archaeological Museum (there’s a separate museum of the modern, revived post-1896 Games) is stuffed with arms and armor, made of bronze and iron. But especially stunning are the remains of the large and imposing Zeus Temple made of local limestone – sadly, the gold-and-ivory cult-statue made in the 430s by Athenian craftsman Pheidias, one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient world, has long since disappeared.
Dr. Paul Cartlege is the author of Ancient Greece: A History in Eleven Cities; Alexander the Great; Democracy: A Life; The Spartans, and many other books. He is a familiar presence on BBC programs, including In Our Time and many others. He was chief historical consultant for the BBC TV series The Greeks and the Channel 4 series The Spartans presented by Bettany Hughes. Receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford, he is now A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge and a visiting Global Distinguished Professor at New York University.
He was also awarded the Gold Cross of the Order of Honour of Greece, an Honorary Citizen of Sparta, and Vice-Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Lead mining in the Roman era resulted in widespread lead pollution and cognitive decline, according to a study. The negative impact of lead exposure in the modern era on human health and development has been widely recognized. Historical and archaeological records indicate that European populations in the Roman era also had high levels of lead exposure, including from air pollution associated with the large-scale mining and smelting of silver and lead ores. Joseph McConnell and colleagues used Artic ice core records and atmospheric aerosol modeling to estimate the concentrations and potential health impact of lead in European air during the height of the Roman Empire, called the Pax Romana. Analysis of three ice cores spanning 500 BCE to 600 CE indicated that European lead emissions sharply increased around 15 BCE, following the rise of the Roman Empire, remained high until the decline of the Pax Romana, beginning around 165 CE, and were not exceeded until the early 2nd millennium CE. Based on modern epidemiological studies, the authors estimated that atmospheric lead pollution during the Pax Romana would have resulted in an average increase in childhood blood lead levels of around 2.4 micrograms per deciliter. According to the authors, childhood lead exposure would have led to widespread cognitive declines of 2.5–3 IQ points throughout the Roman Empire.
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High-resolution measurement of Roman era lead pollution in Arctic ice cores at the Desert Research Institute. Jessi LeMay
*“Pan-European atmospheric lead pollution, enhanced blood lead levels, and cognitive decline from Roman-era mining and smelting,” by Joseph R. McConnell et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 6-Jan-2025. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2419630121
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Early hominins in the Early Middle Pleistocene Epoch processed a wide variety of starch-rich plant foods, according to a study. Compared with animal foods, wild plants require more extensive processing prior to consumption. The use of wild plants over the course of human evolution has not been well-studied, partly due to the low archaeological visibility of plant resources. Hadar Ahituv, Nira Alperson-Afil, Amanda Henry, Naama Goren-Inbar, and colleagues analyzed preserved plant microremains on eight basalt percussive tools, including anvils and hammerstones, from the early Middle Pleistocene site of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Israel. The authors extracted and classified more than 650 starch grains embedded in the surfaces of the basalt tools. The authors detected starches from acorns, grass grains, water chestnuts, yellow waterlily rhizomes, and legume seeds. The identified plants originated from diverse habitats, including a lake close to the site and more distant upland areas. The documented diversity and association with stone tools suggest that the microremains represent residues of plant food processing by hominins, rather than a natural representation of local flora. The authors note that the identified plants vary in seasonality and require diverse gathering and processing methods, representing indirect evidence of advanced cognitive abilities. According to the authors, the findings suggest that carbohydrates extracted from diverse wild plants played an important role in the diets of early hominins at least 780,000 years ago.
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Whole plant (top), edible part (middle), and characteristic starch grain (bottom) of oak. Hadar Ahituv and Yoel Melamed
*“Starch-rich plant foods 780,000 y ago: Evidence from Acheulian percussive stone tools,” by Hadar Ahituv et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 6-Jan-2025. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2418661121
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The Francis Crick Institute—Waves of human migration across Europe during the first millennium AD have been revealed using a more precise method of analysing ancestry with ancient DNA, in research led by the Francis Crick Institute.
Researchers can bring together a picture of how people moved across the world by looking at changes in their DNA, but this becomes a lot harder when historical groups of people are genetically very similar.
In research published today in Nature, researchers report a new data analysis method called Twigstats1, which allows the differences between genetically similar groups to be measured more precisely, revealing previously unknown details of migrations in Europe.
They applied the new method to over 1500 European genomes (a person’s complete set of DNA) from people who lived primarily during the first millennium AD (year 1 to 1000), encompassing the Iron Age, the fall of the Roman Empire, the early medieval ‘Migration Period’ and the Viking Age.
Germanic-speaking people move south in the early Iron Age
The Romans – whose empire was flourishing at the start of the first millennium – wrote about conflict with Germanic groups outside of the Empire’s frontiers.
Using the new method, the scientists revealed waves of these groups migrating south from Northern Germany or Scandinavia early in the first millennium, adding genetic evidence to the historical record.
This ancestry was found in people from southern Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, and southern Britain, with one person in southern Europe carrying 100% Scandinavian-like ancestry.
The team showed that many of these groups eventually mixed with pre-existing populations. The two main zones of migration and interaction mirror the three main branches of Germanic languages, one of which stayed in Scandinavia, one of which became extinct, and another which formed the basis of modern-day German and English.
Finding a Roman gladiator?
In 2nd-4th century York in Britain, 25% of the ancestry of an individual who could have been a Roman soldier or slave gladiator came from early Iron Age Scandinavia. This highlights that there were people with Scandinavian ancestry in Britain earlier than the Anglo-Saxon and Viking periods which started in the 5th century AD.
Germanic-speaking people move north into Scandinavia before the Viking Age
The team then used the method to uncover a later additional northward wave of migration into Scandinavia at the end of the Iron Age (300-800 AD) and just before the Viking Age. They showed that many Viking Age individuals across southern Scandinavia carried ancestry from Central Europe.
A different type of biomolecular analysis of teeth found that people buried on the island of Öland, Sweden, who carried ancestry from Central Europe, had grown up locally, suggesting that this northward influx of people wasn’t a one-off, but a lasting shift in ancestry.
There is archaeological evidence for repeated conflicts in Scandinavia at this time, and the researchers speculate that this unrest may have played a role in driving movements of people, but more archaeological, genetic and environmental data is needed to shed light on the reasons why people moved into and around Scandinavia2.
Viking expansion out of Scandinavia
Historically, the Viking Age (c.800-1050 AD) is associated with people from Scandinavia raiding and settling throughout Europe.
The research showed that many people outside of Scandinavia during this time show a mix of local and Scandinavian ancestry, in support of the historical records.
For example, the team found some Viking Age individuals in the east (now present-day Ukraine and Russia) who had ancestry from present-day Sweden, and individuals in Britain who had ancestry from present-day Denmark.
In Viking Age mass graves in Britain, the remains of men who died violently showed genetic links to Scandinavia, suggesting they may have been executed members of Viking raiding parties.
Adding genetic evidence to historical accounts
Leo Speidel, first author, former postdoctoral researcher at the Crick and UCL and now group leader at RIKEN, Japan, said: “We already have reliable statistical tools to compare the genetics between groups of people who are genetically very different, like hunter-gatherers and early farmers, but robust analyses of finer-scale population changes, like the migrations we reveal in this paper, have largely been obscured until now.
“Twigstats allows us to see what we couldn’t before, in this case migrations all across Europe originating in the north of Europe in the Iron Age, and then back into Scandinavia before the Viking Age. Our new method can be applied to other populations across the world and hopefully reveal more missing pieces of the puzzle.”
Pontus Skoglund, Group Leader of the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Crick, and senior author, said: “The goal was a data analysis method that would provide a sharper lens for fine-scale genetic history. Questions that wouldn’t have been possible to answer before are now within reach to us, so we now need to grow the record of ancient whole-genome sequences.”
Peter Heather, Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London, and co-author of the study, said: “Historical sources indicate that migration played some role in the massive restructuring of the human landscape of western Eurasia in the second half of the first millennium AD which first created the outlines of a politically and culturally recognisable Europe, but the nature, scale and even the trajectories of the movements have always been hotly disputed. Twigstats opens up the exciting possibility of finally resolving these crucial questions.”
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Three waves of migrations across Europe were identified in the paper. Leo Speidel, The Francis Crick Institute
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Diagram showing how Twigstats works. Leo Speidel, the Francis Crick Institute
The more genetic mutations (differences in our DNA) that we share with another person, the closer we tend to be related. This is because we inherit our DNA through our ancestors, and so we inherit the same mutations that they also carried. Our DNA is therefore a proxy for the genetic ‘family trees’ that connect us all.
Over the past few years, scientists have found ways to directly reconstruct these genetic family trees by looking at how mutations are shared between people, connecting our DNA today with those of ancient people. These genetic family trees reveal how old mutations are and who they are shared by.
Twigstats directly looks at these genetic family trees to summarize who we have inherited our DNA from. This new approach looks at more recent mutations to reveal connections between people who lived closer together in time.
The period 300-800 AD is dynamic, and also one where the runic script and language changed across Scandinavia, as explored in the illustration.
About the Francis Crick Institute
The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical discovery institute dedicated to understanding the fundamental biology underlying health and disease. Its work is helping to understand why disease develops and to translate discoveries into new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, infections, and neurodegenerative diseases.
An independent organisation, its founding partners are the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK, Wellcome, UCL (University College London), Imperial College London and King’s College London.
The Crick was formed in 2015, and in 2016 it moved into a brand new state-of-the-art building in central London which brings together 1500 scientists and support staff working collaboratively across disciplines, making it the biggest biomedical research facility under a single roof in Europe.
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Brenna R. Hassett, PhD, is a biological anthropologist and archaeologist at the University of Central Lancashire and a scientific associate at the Natural History Museum, London. In addition to researching the effects of changing human lifestyles on the human skeleton and teeth in the past, she writes for a more general audience about evolution and archaeology, including the Times (UK) top 10 science book of 2016 Built on Bones: 15,000 Years of Urban Life and Death, and her most recent book, Growing Up Human: The Evolution of Childhood. She is also a co-founder of TrowelBlazers, an activist archive celebrating the achievements of women in the “digging” sciences.
A recent investigation of human remains found in the UK’s Cheddar Gorge has once again brought a particularly unsavory aspect of our human story into the light: human consumption of other humans. The surprising discovery of cannibalism in the Early Bronze Age comes from the re-examination of the remains of 37 men, women, and children that were found in pieces at the site of Charterhouse Warren, down a disused shaft cut into the Mendip Hills. This is the first instance of cannibalism of humans, or anthropophagy, to be discovered in British prehistory on such a large scale, and the reported findings force a reconsideration of what role cannibalism may have played in the life of humans in the past. Reckoning with such an emotive and sensational topic has never been easy for scientists, however, and there is still quite a lot of controversy about exactly how much cannibalism ever really happened in the past.
In the fairly recent past, accusations of cannibalism in a society or group were often considered to be a propaganda move on the part of the accusers. William Arens argued in his 1979 book The Man-Eating Myth that accusations of anthropophagy were never based on observation, only second-hand reports, and reflected deeply held prejudices by racist and colonial commentators. Whether it was the dog-headed Cynocephali, a tribe of barbarian cannibals described by Ancient Greeks that somehow made it down to medieval times or the Carib people who were described as cannibals to the newly arrived Christopher Columbus by the neighboring Arawak group, what most accusations of cannibalism have in common is that they are used to denigrate the humanity of the accused. Columbus’s description of the “Caniba” in his 1490s journal tells of the people he encountered describing their rivals as “dog-nosed” cannibals. What is left to prove the truth of these accusations then, and what Columbus himself used to bolster his arguments for a dangerous and evil people that had to be subjugated, is the physical evidence left behind by the consumption of human flesh: the bones themselves.
While Columbus was, of course, not a biological anthropologist—a scientist who studies bones and teeth from people in the past—it is within the study of human remains of the past that we can start to see the reality of cannibalism. Anthropologists borrow techniques from forensic medicine to identify the traces of trauma left on human bones to quite literally piece together evidence of what has happened to a human body. Knives, axes, teeth, hammers, and other tools leave cuts, furrows, scrapes, and other marks on the bones they touch. These will differ depending on whether they are made in living flesh or dry bone, and what kind of tool was used for what kind of purpose. We know that humans have a long history of butchering animals for food, and we can recognize the characteristic patterns that they use to acquire specific cuts of meat or extract nutritious marrow from bones.
Sometimes, this pattern appears on human bones as well. Anthropologists have recognized the characteristic patterns of butchery on human remains in archaeological sites from around the world, across huge swathes of time. There are cups made from skulls from Gough’s Cave in the same Cheddar Gorge that date back almost 15,000 years. Bones found in the cave systems of Spain’s Atapuerca mountains show that about 800,000 years ago individuals from an ancient hominin species, Homo antecessor, were butchered and eaten by tool-wielding hominins far before the evolution of modern Homo sapiens. Perhaps the best-known examples of large-scale cannibalism come from the south-west of North America, where the remains of people from the Ancestral Puebloan culture were identified as having been cannibalized in the best-selling book Man Corn by anthropologists Christy G. Turner II and Jacqueline A. Turner. The broken-open bones, with distinct cut marks from being severed by tools, characteristic polish where they were stirred in a boiling pot—and later even a human coprolite that showed its owner had eaten another human—were a direct riposte to the anthropologists who insisted cannibalism was only something people accused other people of.
It was in fact a disease in living people that forced a reconsideration of whether or not our species was a habitual cannibal—and why. The discovery of a prion disease, kuru, in the Fore people of Papua New Guinea that was transmitted by consuming contaminated human brain tissue of family members during funeral rites demonstrated that cannibalism exists in living cultures. It further showed that the practice is not necessarily the bloodthirsty act of a warlike people, as those with vested interests in making another group “less” than human, like Columbus, reported. Many instances of what looks like butchery on human remains may reflect a cultural type of cannibalism; a particular society’s death rituals. In other cases, ecological pressures such as a natural disaster may prompt eating other humans, as has been proposed for the Ancestral Puebloans who may have been cannibalized during a period of intense drought, or for cases of known anthropophagy such as the Andes Flight Disaster.
These far more functional explanations for why humans would eat other humans are a far cry from the violence and inhumanity suggested by Columbus and his classical Western European idea of cannibalism, which is precisely why the Bronze Age remains from Cheddar Gorge come as such a surprise. The remains from Charterhouse Warren show signs that they were attacked and killed en masse as well as signs of being butchered, processed for meat, and even possible scrape marks from human teeth. This suggests that, on top of the cultural and ecological cannibalism we have slowly begun to accept as part of our story, we must also contend with cannibalism as a part of extreme violence that is also part of our species’s history.
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Researchers reconstructed familial relationships among elite individuals buried around 500 CE in Peru, including two ritually sacrificed relatives. The Moche archaeological culture lived in sophisticated urban complexes along the north coast of present-day Peru from 300 to 950 CE. Kinship is hypothesized to have played a central role in the maintenance of political authority in Moche society. Jeffrey Quilter, Régulo Fanco Jordan, John Krigbaum, Lars Fehren-Schmitz, Erik Marsh, John Verano, and colleagues used archaeological, genetic, and isotopic data to characterize familial relationships between four adults and two sacrificed juveniles buried in a pyramid-like temple in Chicama Valley, Peru. The burial group included an adult woman known as the Señora de Cao, who was interred along with numerous offerings and a sacrificed juvenile individual. The results revealed that all six individuals were biologically related in a family tree spanning at least four generations. Isotopic analyses suggested that most of the individuals likely spent their childhoods in or near the Chicama Valley and had similar diets rich in maize and marine-derived proteins. The juvenile sacrificed and buried with the Señora de Cao was possibly her niece and had a distinct geographic origin and diet. The finding suggests a previously undocumented form of ritual sacrifice among Moche elites involving close relatives. According to the authors, the study* provides insight into the intersection of kinship, elite status, and ritual practices in Moche society.
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Enclosure of burials at the Huaca Cao Viejo temple at the El Brujo archaeological complex in Peru. Credit Jeffrey Quilter
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Huaca Cao Viejo temple at the El Brujo archaeological complex in Peru. Credit Jeffrey Quilter
*“Family relations of Moche elite burials on the North Coast of Peru (~500 CE): Analyses of the Señora de Cao and relatives,” by Jeffrey Quilter et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 23-Dec-2024. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2416321121
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PHILADELPHIA, December 20, 2024—At the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq, a temple razed by fire around 612 BCE, has remarkably preserved shrines that were recovered by the Penn Museum and Iraqi archaeologists on a site excavation this year as part of the Penn Nimrud Project, one of several cultural heritage preservation and protection initiatives of Penn’s Iraq Heritage Stabilization Program (IHSP). These recent discoveries enhance our understanding of one of the world’s first empires while also highlighting archaeology’s integral role in cultural heritage restoration.
Penn Nimrud Project expands 19th-century excavations
Known as Kalhu by Assyrians and Calah in the Bible, Nimrud’s vast archaeological mounds first excavated in the 19th century, provide evidence confirming how ancient Mesopotamia contributed to human advancement. Assyria also represents a crucial part of Iraq’s cultural identity, which the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attempted to erase by destroying major Mesopotamian monuments between 2014 and 2017.Two of these sites at Nimrud were the Ninurta Temple and its Ziggurat (stepped temple tower) and the famed Northwest Palace built by King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE) who reigned over Nimrud, the newly appointed capital of the Neo-Assyrian state.
Despite previous excavations led by the English archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard and then by British archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, husband of renowned mystery author Agatha Christie, the temple remained poorly documented and predominantly unexplored until now.
Penn IHSP safeguards at-risk cultural heritage sites in Iraq and Syria. By working collaboratively with government authorities, international experts, and local stakeholders, the Penn Nimrud Project, a part of IHSP, seeks to repair recent damage, reopen the site to tourism, and refine our understanding of Nimrud’s temples and Assyrian religious practices. All artifacts recovered from excavations remain in Iraq.
Findings at the temple
In its third season, project excavations unearthed two new shrines within the sprawling Ninurta Temple. Inside the larger shrine, the team found a monumental stone dais (a low platform for the statue of a god or goddess worshipped in the temple, measuring about 12 ft. by 9.5 ft., with a cuneiform inscription, presumably of King Ashurnasirpal II. The smaller shrine contained a dais severely damaged in antiquity. These artifacts provide valuable clues regarding Assyrian religious practices and the deities worshipped there for centuries.
Other noteworthy finds in the shrines were possible parts of statues of unknown deities, which would have once stood on the daises. Yet only fragments of these types of statues and their accouterments were found after invaders from Babylonia (southern and central Iraq) and Media (ancient western Iran) pillaged and burned the temple around 614-12 BCE, overthrowing the Assyrian Empire. Through careful examination, excavators hope to develop a detailed picture of the religious practices surrounding the state god Ninurta, the war god of the mighty Assyrians, and closely associated deities as the kingdom emerged as one of the world’s first empires. Despite the looting and destruction of the temple in antiquity, the discoveries reveal Ninurta’s central role in the state religion and the incredible wealth held by the temple.
“The burning and sudden collapse of the Ninurta Temple left it in a remarkable state of preservation. The team located preserved cedar wood brought to Nimrud from the Lebanon Mountains for the temple’s construction—exactly as it was recorded in the inscriptions by King Ashurnasirpal II, in which he describes building the temple precinct,” says Dr. Michael Danti, Program Director of the IHSP. “The condition and distribution of artifacts strongly suggest that the shrines and associated treasures were looted and intentionally damaged by the Babylonians and Medes before being set ablaze.”
According to Dr. Danti, the most intriguing find was a kudurru, a cuneiform-inscribed stone monument in the temple, which dates to 797 BCE and features symbols of important deities. It documents a royal decree granting the governorship of Hindanu, an area located on the Euphrates River at the Syria-Iraq border.
“The Assyrian king Adad-Nerari III (811-783 BCE) assigned this strategic region to a governor named Nergal-Eresh of Rasappa (located west of the Tigris and northwest from Nimrud in the Khabur River region),” Dr. Danti explains. “It strongly emphasizes that no one may refute Nergal-Eresh’s claim to his new territory. It closes with a long list of curses for anyone who breaks the agreement, damages the stela, or removes it from the temple.”
Researchers also found well-preserved clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions written in Assyrian (a dialect of Akkadian) that reveal details about the temple’s economic activities, such as silver loans and lists of assets, along with a note written in Aramaic—a language and script widely used during the later Assyrian Empire. Other objects recovered during the excavations include a stone bowl set into the brick floor of the shrine, likely used for pouring libations during religious ceremonies, the sculpted head of a griffon, fragments of glazed pottery and stone tablets, carved ivories, and jewelry. The wide range of object types, materials, and artistic styles reflect the burgeoning wealth of the Assyrian Empire and its vast military conquests and trade connections.
Preserving Assyria exhibition at the Penn Museum
Another site included in the Penn Nimrud Project is the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in the modern city of East Mosul, where the IHSP is helping to repair damage from terrorist attacks to the ancient fortifications of the Assyrian city. In support of the reconstruction effort, excavations at the Mashki Gate revealed detailed reliefs depicting military campaigns of King Sennacherib (705-681 BCE), which were 3D scanned by IHSP. Portions of their replicas will be the focus of an upcoming exhibition at the Penn Museum, Preserving Assyria, opening February 8, 2025.
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A closer look at the dais uncovered by Penn Museum and Iraqi archaeologists at Nimrud, Iraq (2024). Photo: Penn Museum
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The dais uncovered by Penn Museum and Iraqi archaeologists at Nimrud, Iraq (2024). Photo: Penn Museum
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The most intriguing find for archaeologists at Nimrud (2024) was a kudurru, a cuneiform-inscribed stone monument. It documents a royal decree granting the governorship of an area near the Euphrates River at the Syria-Iraq border. Photo: Penn Museum
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Cuneiform inscriptions can be seen on this Kudurru found by Penn Museum and Iraqi archaeologists at Nimrud, Iraq (2024). Photo: Penn Museum.
The University of Pennsylvania, Nimrud Archaeological Trust, and private sources funded the project.
ABOUT THE PENN MUSEUM
The Penn Museum’s mission is to be a center for inquiry and the ongoing exploration of humanity for our University of Pennsylvania, regional, national, and global communities, following ethical standards and practices.
Through conducting research, stewarding collections, creating learning opportunities, sharing stories, and creating experiences that expand access to archaeology and anthropology, the Museum builds empathy and connections across diverse cultures.
The Penn Museum is open Tuesday-Sunday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm. It is open until 8:00 pm on first Wednesdays of the month through March. The Café is open Tuesday-Thursday, 9:00 am-3:00 pm and Friday and Saturday, 10:00 am-2:00 pm. For information, visit www.penn.museum, call 215.898.4000, or follow @PennMuseum on social media.
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Aarhus University—At a Neolithic settlement on the Danish island Funen dating back 5,500 years, archaeologists have discovered both grinding stones and grains from early cereals. However, new research* reveals that the inhabitants did not use the stones to grind the cereal grains. Instead of making bread, they likely prepared porridge or gruel from the grains.
A grinding stone, as the name suggests, is a stone with a sufficiently flat surface that allows grinding against it with another, smaller stone.
Archaeologists found fourteen of such stones when they excavated the remains of a settlement from the Early Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture at Frydenlund, on Strandby Mark southeast of Haarby on Funen (see fact box at the bottom of this text).
They also found over 5,000 charred grain kernels of naked barley, emmer wheat, and durum wheat, amongst others.
One might offhand assume that the inhabitants 5,500 years ago ground their cereals into flour and baked bread with it. That has indeed been the typical interpretation of grinding stones from that time.
But they didn’t.
An international research team from Denmark, Germany and Spain has now analyzed both the grains and the stones, concluding that the grinding stones were not used to grind cereals.
The researchers examined microscopic mineral plant remains (phytoliths) and starch grains in small cavities on the surfaces of the stones. Surprisingly, they did not find any evidence of grinding of cereals.
The researchers found only a few phytoliths on the stones, and the starch grains they identified came from wild plants instead of cereals.
“We have not identified the plants the starch grains originate from. We have merely ruled out the most obvious candidates – namely the cereals found at the settlement, which were not ground, as well as various collected species, including hazelnuts,” explains archaeobotanist, PhD Welmoed Out from Moesgaard Museum.
Together with senior researcher, Dr. Phil. Niels H. Andersen, also from Moesgaard Museum, she led the study recently published in the scientific journal Vegetation History and Archaeobotany.
What the grinding stones were used for remains open to interpretation, aside from the fact that they lack clear wear marks from the pushing motions used for grinding grain.
“The trough-shaped querns with traces of pushing movements emerged 500 years later. The grinding stones we studied here were struck with pestles made of stone, like crushing in a mortar. We also found such pestles at the site, resembling rounded, thick stone sausages. However, we have not analyzed them for phytoliths or starch,” explains Niels H. Andersen.
This is the first time a state-of-the-art combination of phytolith and starch analyses has been performed on grinding stones from the first farmers in Northern Europe. The results support a hypothesis that archaeobotanists and archaeologists elsewhere in Northern Europe also have proposed after discovering remains of grains cooked into porridge and gruel: that the first farmers did not live on water and bread but rather on water and gruel, alongside berries, nuts, roots, and meat.
And yes, they likely drank water. According to Niels H. Andersen, no definitive traces of beer brewing have been found in Denmark before the Bronze Age.
However, as the two researchers from Moesgaard Museum emphasize: “This study only involves one settlement. While it supports other findings from the Funnel Beaker Culture, we cannot rule out the possibility of different results emerging when this method is applied to finds from other excavations.”
Facts:
The Funnel Beaker Culture was an early farming culture in Northern, Central, and Eastern Europe during the period ca. 4000–2800 BCE, marking the introduction of agriculture and cattle farming to Scandinavia. The name refers to the culture’s commonly found clay beakers with funnel-shaped necks.
The discovery on Southern Funen is the most extensive find of grinding stones and grains from the Funnel Beaker Culture in the entire region it encompassed.
The study was done in collaboration between researchers from Moesgaard Museum and Aarhus University in Denmark, Kiel University in Germany and the Spanish National Research Council (IMF-CSIC) in Barcelona
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One of the 14 grinding stones that archeologists found while excavating a 5,500 years old settlement on the Danish island Funen. A new study reveals that the stones were not used to grind cereal grains. Niels H. Andersen, Moesgaard Museum
*Plant use at Funnel Beaker sites: combined macro- and micro-remains analysis at the Early Neolithic site of Frydenlund, Denmark (ca. 3600 BCE), Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 16-Dec-2024. 10.1007/s00334-024-01020-9
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Florence, Italy — Following a complex three-year process involving teams of experts, Museo di Palazzo Vecchio’s Wardrobe, commonly known as the Map Room—the most visited gallery in the museum—has been fully restored thanks to funding provided by Friends of Florence.
The project included restoration of both the large terrestrial globe and 53 maps of the world as it was known in the second half of the 16th century commissioned by Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici. The process also involved the structural consolidation of the floor, the installation of a domotic lighting system, the complete overhaul and maintenance of the 13 monumental walnut cabinets with carved decorative motifs by Dionigi di Matteo Nigetti; and the replacement of protective acrylic panes with modern antiglare panels.
The operation was devised and managed by Palazzo Vecchio’s Servizio Belle Arti e Fabbrica under the Direzione Servizi Tecnici in conjunction with the Direzione Cultura’s Servizio Musei. Most of the process was conducted on site so visitors could watch the restorers at work.
In tandem with the restoration, the Museo Galileo, thanks to an accord stipulated with the Comune di Firenze, developed a website enabling users to conduct an interactive 3D exploration of the room, which has been reconstructed digitally along with the globe and works of art it houses. An illustrated publication documenting the restoration process will be published by Mandragora in 2025. Both the website and publication are also supported by Friends of Florence.
The Map Room, a valuable part of the Palazzo Vecchio museum, has been restored to its former glory,” said Florence Mayor Sara Funaro. “This room of immense historical importance has been the object of a complex and meticulous operation thanks to the unflagging involvement of Palazzo Vecchio’s Servizio Belle Arti e Fabbrica. The superb globe in the center of the room, one of the oldest in the world, has also recovered its original beauty. And it is now going to be possible, quite literally, for users to immerse themselves in this unique environment thanks to the innovative technology developed by the Museo Galileo. A huge thank you to Friends of Florence, which is once again working hand in hand with our city to safeguard and enhance its artistic heritage.”
“This is one of the best-loved parts of our museum and now, after its restoration, it is even more beautiful,” opined Councilor for Cultural Affairs Giovanni Bettarini. “Thanks to the generosity of Friends of Florence, this room is once again a treasure house of beauty and knowledge that illustrates for us how the world was known back in the days of Grand Duke Cosimo I. This restoration, conducted by our distinguished experts and restorers, has been truly fascinating to track and now allows us to see this room as it was in the Renaissance, with an interesting 3D virtual tour produced thanks to the expertise of the Museo Galileo.”
“The Palazzo Vecchio Wardrobe study and restoration program has been a fascinating undertaking that has brought art, history, and geography together in a single project,” said Friends of Florence President Simonetta Brandolini d’Adda. “After three years’ work, the result is truly extraordinary. We thank Palazzo Vecchio’s Servizio Belle Arti e Fabbrica, the Servizio Tecnici, the Direzione Cultura’s Servizio Musei, and the Museo Galileo for their collegial partnership. We are also immensely grateful to our donor, the Giorgi Family Foundation, for their generous support for this special project.”
Soprintendente Antonella Ranaldi added, “This complex restoration, which has brought together the various institutions involved, is accompanied by explanatory videos and 3D models and by a dedicated publication, providing a splendid example of public- and private-sector involvement, and with Friends of Florence playing a proactive role in the funding.”
Background
The Map Room
When Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519–1574) moved into the Palazzo Vecchio, the adjacent buildings were used as the Wardrobe, space in which the court’s movable property was stored. Beginning in 1661, this area was transformed under the direction of Giorgio Vasari to display, per the Duke, all the “things of heaven and earth.” The room’s design, devised by Vasari with cosmographer Fra’ Miniato Pitti and still partly unfinished at Cosimo’s death, featured 57 maps of lands then known in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the New World fitted as panels on the doors of the large wooden cabinets.
The ceiling, decorated with allegorical figures of the constellations, was to open to allow two large globes to drop down from a star-spangled vault: the celestial globe, which may never have been made, was to remain suspended in mid-air, while the extant terrestrial globe was to be lowered to the ground. The design also provided for busts of princes and emperors and the first 300 portraits of illustrious men in the Gioviana Collection (subsequently transferred to the Galleria degli Uffizi) to be displayed between the cabinets and the ceiling. The idea of displaying all the “things of heaven and earth” in a single room reflects Cosimo’s interest in the natural and mathematical sciences, geography, and trade, but also the Duke’s self-celebratory projects alluding to his name and the Greek word “cosmos.”
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“Sala della Guardaroba” (Wardrobe Room, or commonly known as the Map Room), 16th century, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy, after 2021-24 restoration with support from Friends of Florence. Terrestrial globe and geographical maps by Egnazio Danti and Stefano Bonsignori with walnut cabinets by Dionigi di Matteo. Photo courtesy of Comune di Firenze.
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“Sala della Guardaroba” (Wardrobe Room, or commonly known as the Map Room), 16th century, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy, after 2021-24 restoration with support from Friends of Florence. Detail of geographical maps by Egnazio Danti and Stefano Bonsignori with walnut cabinets by Dionigi di Matteo Nigetti. Photo courtesy of Comune di Firenze
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The Maps
The 13 large walnut cabinets (initially used to store tapestries and other textiles) were made by Dionigi di Matteo Nigetti between 1564 and 1571. Of the 57 maps in the original design, only 53 survive. Thirty of these were based on a design by the Dominican cosmographer Fra’ Egnazio Danti and completed in 1575, while the others were designed by his successor, the Olivetan monk Dom Stefano Bonsignori. The groups differ essentially in the techniques adopted by the two artists. Danti’s technique is akin to painting on paper and parchment reminiscent of illuminated codices, with inscriptions, profiles, and chiaroscuro outlined in ink. Bonsignori’s applied opaque brushwork using oil paints most commonly used at the time.
The spectacular globe in the center of the room, which measures some 220 cm. in diameter, is the world’s earliest surviving large-scale model of Earth. It was made with immense skill at a time when the technique for building such scientific instruments had not yet been codified. It was first fashioned between 1564 and 1569 by Fra’ Danti with the Medici court architect and engineer Antonio Lupicini who made its interior shell and its external iron structure “with such a new technique that with one finger alone that huge machine could be moved in every direction,” as Giorgio Vasari noted at the time. After it had become impossible to produce the amazing, theatrical machine envisioned by Cosimo I, the globe was moved to the new ducal residence in the Palazzo Pitti, before being transferred to the Terrazzo degli Uffizi around 1594.
In 1776, the globe was moved once again along with the entire grand ducal collection of scientific instruments to the new Museum of Physics and Natural History known today as La Specola. It remained there until the Comune di Firenze had it restored in the 1950s and returned to the room in Palazzo Vecchio for which it had originally been designed.
As restorers discovered during the intervention, however, the globe now in Palazzo Vecchio is no longer the one produced to Fra’ Danti’s design. After only a few decades its surface was restored – and possibly updated – on two separate occasions. The first was completed by court cosmographer Antonio Santucci in 1597 and the second a decade later by his successor Matteo Neroni.
An analysis of its surface, a historical and cartographical examination of the countries depicted, and a series of hitherto unknown archival documents discovered as the project was underway, show that between 1605 and 1613, Neroni did not confine himself to simply restoring and updating Fra’ Danti’s globe. Rather, he completely demolished it in order to rebuild it from scratch, from its innermost layers, possibly salvaging only the main part of the iron shell that Lupicini had made some 40 years earlier.
Restoration
The various restoration procedures were accompanied by a full program of multispectral photographic documentation and analyses. The globe was also recorded through the various phases of restoration with photogrammetrical surveys and the production of three-dimensional models. Its interior was inspected with a videoendoscope enabling restorers to get a clear picture of the composition of every layer in the painted surface’s complex support system.
The maps were restored in the adjacent Old Chancellery, in full public view, with the paintings being removed from the cabinet doors one at a time and then returned after restoration. Their wooden supports were in good condition overall, but both groups displayed defects in relation to the painting technique used: the paint and colors had deteriorated in the areas representing the sea on Bonsignori’s panels. The paintings’ legibility was seriously impaired by the effects of earlier restorations. Aggressive cleaning had worn down the painted surfaces; consolidations created stains; materials used over time had deteriorated; and the surfaces were extensively covered in a brown patina.
The present restoration project was designed to improve the painted panels’ legibility by conducting selective thinning or removal of the earlier restoration materials and retouching.
The operation enabled restorers to recover color values consistent with the original palette, such as the intense lapis lazuli blue of the seas in Fra’ Danti’s panels and the gleam of the tonal transitions in Bonsignori’s work.
The terrestrial globe, which could not be moved, was restored on site allowing the public to view the process. Barely legible and badly damaged by being moved around over the centuries and exposed to the elements when it stood in the courtyard of the Museo della Specola in the 19th century, the globe was removed from its external iron structure and placed on a wooden base. The challenging cleaning operation was conducted in two phases. First, the thick layer of repainting was completely removed. The second phase required removing, one by one, the countless residual black vestiges of old oil-based retouching that may have dated back to a 19th-century restoration.
The stunning, original palette was revealed. Lapis lazuli was used for the blue seas rippling with waves traversed by ships and sea creatures; gold for the inscriptions; ochre and malachite for the land masses with their reliefs highlighted and sparkling with golden specks; and cinnabar red for the islands and cities represented by small castles or by dots and the lines of the geographical grid.
The globe’s external support structure consisting of various iron pieces was dismantled, restored, and reassembled. This operation confirmed that the most important surviving iron elements are still the original pieces, despite their repeated disassembly and other interventions. The cleaning operation to remove deteriorated protective materials and surface corrosion revealed the details of the engraved graduations and inscriptions that had been invisible.
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“Sala della Guardaroba” (Wardrobe Room, or commonly known as the Map Room), 16th century, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy, after 2021-24 restoration with support from Friends of Florence. Detail of terrestrial globe by Egnazio Danti and Stefano Bonsignori. Photo courtesy of Comune di Firenze
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Website
Designed by the Museo Galileo with the support of the Friends of Florence, the new website is a 3D digital model of the cosmographical and geographical content in the renovated Map Room. Zoomable, it is designed to facilitate access to the room, maps, and globe with links to additional information. Visitors may rotate the model globe in any direction; see the metal and wood supports and materials used inside; and explore the surface and locations depicted.
Videos include an introduction, six segments devoted to the historical figures involved in the room’s layout and design, and two illustrating the designs themselves, one devised by Giorgio Vasari and a variant by architect and cosmographer Antonio Lupicini.
The protagonists in the videos are: Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, who first envisioned the project; Vasari, his architect and the designer of the mechanical equipment intended to make the model cosmos come to life; the cosmographer Dom Miniato Pitti charged by Vasari to produce the cosmographical mechanism; Cosimo I’s cosmographer Fra’ Egnazio Danti responsible for the terrestrial globe and for the majority of the cosmographical panels painted on the cabinet doors; Francesco I’s cosmographer Dom Stefano Buonsignori produced the rest of the cosmographical panels; and Antonio Lupicini designed the globe’s metal structure and devised a variant for the mechanical equipment which, in the end, was never built. https://mostre2.museogalileo.it/palazzovecchio-guardaroba/index.php/en/
Museo Galileo’s Scientific Director Filippo Camerota said, “The website project developed by the museum will enable anyone to virtually explore the Palazzo Vecchio museum’s Wardrobe in such a way that they will be able to consult content in detail, read the texts, and analyze information in greater depth. This useful tool for researchers, scholars, and enthusiasts alike is a research project that testifies to our institution’s commitment to combining the stringent study of historical sources with innovative ways of making information available to a broader audience, acting in synergy with the leading public- and private-sector players in our region.”
“The maps of Danti and Buonsignori, are on permanent loan to Palazzo Vecchio from the Gallerie degli Uffizi,” said Simona Pasquinucci, who is in charge of the Gallerie degli Uffizi’s Curatorial Department. “They have recovered their brilliance and their luminosity thanks to the restoration funded by the Friends of Florence, whom we thank profusely. It has proven to be a highly productive collaboration, for which we are grateful to the Comune di Firenze.”
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About Friends of Florence
Friends of Florence is a non-profit foundation supported by individuals from around the world who are dedicated to preserving and enhancing the rich cultural heritage of Florence and Tuscany and conserving irreplaceable artistic and cultural treasures. Friends of Florence identifies significant projects spanning centuries in need of restoration, secures funding, and works in collaboration with local authorities to complete projects.
Since its founding in 1998, the Foundation has raised and donated $10 million for conservation projects in the region. Friends of Florence works directly with Florence’s famed conservation laboratories to ensure restoration is done at the highest level, has the approval of the City of Florence and the Italian Ministry of Art, and is completed on time and on budget.
Through its work, Friends of Florence creates opportunities for the study and appreciation of paintings, sculptures, architectural elements, places of worship, and collections at the Uffizi Gallery, the Accademia, the Baptistry, the Piazza della Signoria, the Museum of San Marco, and dozens of other museums, churches, and public sites.
A model of high-impact, low-overhead philanthropy, Friends of Florence is the primary source of funding for the city’s conservators, a respected partner with museums and cultural authorities in Italy and the U.S., and a publisher/producer of publications, multimedia offerings, seminars, lectures, and cultural travel opportunities. www.friendsofflorence.org
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University of Oxford—Archaeologists have analyzed over 3000 human bones and bone fragments from the Early Bronze Age site of Charterhouse Warren, England, concluding that the people were massacred, butchered, and likely partly consumed by enemies as a means to dehumanize them.
There have been hundreds of human skeletons found in Britain dating between c.2500-1500 cal. BC, however direct evidence for violent conflict is rare.
“We actually find more evidence for injuries to skeletons dating to the Neolithic period in Britain than the Early Bronze Age, so Charterhouse Warren stands out as something very unusual”, states lead author of the research, Professor Rick Schulting from the University of Oxford. “It paints a considerably darker picture of the period than many would have expected.”
In the 1970s, the scattered bones of at least 37 individuals were discovered in a 15m-deep shaft at Charterhouse Warren, Somerset. They were a mix of men, women, and children, suggesting the assemblage was representative of a community.
Unlike most contemporary burials, the skulls display evidence of violent death from blunt force trauma. To uncover the mystery of what happened to these people, researchers from several European institutions analyzed the bones. Their results are published in the journal Antiquity.
The researchers found numerous cutmarks and perimortem fractures (made around the time of death) on the bones, suggesting that they were intentionally butchered and may have been partly consumed. But why would people in Early Bronze Age Britain cannibalize the dead?
At the nearby Palaeolithic site of Gough’s Cave in Cheddar Gorge, cannibalism was likely a form of funerary ritual. Charterhouse Warren is different, however. Evidence for violent death, with no indication of a fight, implies the victims were taken by surprise. It is probable they were all massacred, and the butchery was carried out by their enemies.
Were they killed for food? This is unlikely. There were abundant cattle bones found mixed in with the human ones, suggesting the people at Charterhouse Warren had plenty to eat without needing to resort to cannibalism.
Instead, cannibalism may have been a way to ‘other’ the deceased. By eating their flesh and mixing the bones in with faunal remains, the killers were likening their enemies to animals, thereby dehumanizing them.
What events led to this dramatic act of violence? Resource competition and climate change don’t seem to have exacerbated conflict in Britain at this time, and there is currently no genetic evidence to suggest the co-existence of communities with different ancestries that could have resulted in ethnic conflict.
This suggests that the conflict was caused by social factors. Perhaps theft or insults led to tensions, which escalated out of proportion. Evidence for infection with plague in the teeth of two children indicates disease may have also exacerbated tensions.
“The finding of evidence of the plague in previous research by colleagues from The Francis Crick Institute was completely unexpected”, says Professor Schulting. “We’re still unsure whether, and if so how, this is related to the violence at the site”.
Ultimately, the findings paint a picture of a prehistoric people for whom perceived slights and cycles of revenge could result in disproportionally violent actions. This situation is, unfortunately, familiar from more recent times.
“Charterhouse Warren is one of those rare archaeological sites that challenges the way we think about the past,” Professor Schulting concludes. “It is a stark reminder that people in prehistory could match more recent atrocities and shines a light on a dark side of human behavior. That it is unlikely to have been a one-off event makes it even more important that its story is told.”
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Examples of cranial trauma. Top) perimortem injury to the left posterior of the frontal bone (a), cutmarks can also be seen on the frontal bone (b) and patinated bevel of the internal cranial surface is apparent around the injury (c); middle) cranium with a perforating injury to mid-frontal bone (d), a closer view shows radiating fracture lines (e) and the internal view shows patinated bevel (f ); bottom) adult cranium (g), close inspection shows cutmarks running along the mid-frontal (h) and a perimortem blunt force fracture to the conjoining right frontal bone fragment (i) Images by Schulting et al. Antiquity, December 2024. Schulting et al. Antiquity, December 2024.
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Right hemi-mandible of child aged about 10 years (a) with detail of cutmarks on the ascending ramus (b). Image credit: Schulting et al. Antiquity, December 2024. Schulting et al. Antiquity, December 2024
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Cutmarks on distal left humerus. Image credit: Schulting et al. Antiquity, December 2024. Schulting et al. Antiquity, December 2024.
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Bones showing damage attributed to possible human chewing—from left to right: metatarsal 1, metatarsal, clavicle, metatarsal. Image credit: Schulting et al. Antiquity, December 2024. Schulting et al. Antiquity, December 2024
*The darker angels of our nature’: assemblage of butchered Early Bronze Age human remains from Charterhouse Warren, Somerset, UK – Rick J. Schulting, Teresa Fernández-Crespo, Javier Ordoño, Fiona Brock, Ashleigh Kellow, Christophe Snoeck, Ian R. Cartwright, David Walker, Louise Loe & Tony Audsley, Antiquity.
Antiquity is an international peer-reviewed journal of world archaeology, published six times a year and edited by Dr Robert Witcher. The journal was founded by O.G.S. Crawford in 1927 and is currently edited in the Department of Archaeology at Durham University (head: Professor Tom Moore). The journal is published in partnership with Cambridge University Press (CUP).
Cambridge University Press publishes over 350 peer-reviewed academic journals across a wide spread of subject areas, in print and online. Many of these journals are leading academic publications in their fields and together form one of the most valuable and comprehensive bodies of research available today.
Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
Its extensive peer-reviewed publishing lists comprise 45,000 titles covering academic research, professional development, over 350 research journals, school-level education, English language teaching and bible publishing.
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For further information about Cambridge University Press, visit: http://cambridge.org
About the University of Oxford
Oxford University has been placed number 1 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the ninth year running, and number 3 in the QS World Rankings 2024. At the heart of this success are the twin-pillars of our ground-breaking research and innovation and our distinctive educational offer.
Oxford is world-famous for research and teaching excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research alongside our personalised approach to teaching sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions.
Through its research commercialisation arm, Oxford University Innovation, Oxford is the highest university patent filer in the UK and is ranked first in the UK for university spinouts, having created more than 300 new companies since 1988. Over a third of these companies have been created in the past five years. The university is a catalyst for prosperity in Oxfordshire and the United Kingdom, contributing £15.7 billion to the UK economy in 2018/19, and supports more than 28,000 full time jobs.
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Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology—After modern humans left Africa, they met and interbred with Neanderthals, resulting in around two to three percent Neanderthal DNA that can be found in the genomes of all people outside Africa today. However, little is known about the genetics of these first pioneers in Europe and the timing of the Neanderthal admixture with non-Africans.
A key site in Europe is Zlatý kůň in Czechia, where a complete skull from a single individual who lived around 45,000 years ago was discovered and previously genetically analyzed. However, due to the lack of archaeological context, it was not possible to link this individual to any archaeologically defined group. A nearby site, the Ilsenhöhle in Ranis in Germany, about 230 km from Zlatý kůň, is known for a specific type of archaeology, the Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician (LRJ), which dates to around 45,000 years ago. It has long been debated whether the LRJ culture was produced by Neanderthals or early modern humans. Although mostly small fragments of bones are preserved in Ranis, a previous study was able to analyze mitochondrial DNA from thirteen of these remains and found that they belonged to modern humans and not Neanderthals. However, since the mitochondrial sequence only constitutes a miniscule part of the genetic information, the relationships to other modern humans remained a mystery.
Linking Zlatý kůň and Ranis
A new study* published today in Nature analyzed the nuclear genomes of the thirteen specimens from Ranis and found that they represented at least six individuals. The size of the bones indicated that two of these individuals were infants and, genetically, three were males and three were females. Interestingly, among these individuals were a mother and daughter, as well as other, more distant, biological relatives. The team also sequenced more DNA from the female skull found at Zlatý kůň, producing a high-quality genome for this individual. “To our surprise, we discovered a fifth- or sixth-degree genetic relationship between Zlatý kůň and two individuals from Ranis.” says Arev Sümer, lead author of the study, “This means that Zlatý kůň was genetically part of the extended family of Ranis and likely also made LRJ-type tools”.
Among the six individuals from Ranis, one bone was particularly well preserved, and in fact it is the best preserved modern human bone from the Pleistocene for DNA retrieval. This allowed the team to obtain a high-quality genome from this male individual, referred to as Ranis13. Together, the Ranis13 and Zlatý kůň genomes represent the oldest high-quality modern human genomes sequenced to date. When analyzing genetic variants related to phenotypic traits, they found that Ranis and Zlatý kůň individuals carried variants associated with dark skin and hair color as well as brown eyes, reflecting the recent African origin of this early European population.
By analyzing the segments inherited from the same ancestor in the Ranis and Zlatý kůň genomes, the researchers estimate that their population consisted of at most a few hundred individuals who may have been spread out over a larger territory. The authors found no evidence that this small early modern human population contributed to later Europeans or any other world-wide population.
A narrower timeframe for the shared Neanderthal admixture
Members of the Zlatý kůň/Ranis population coexisted with Neanderthals in Europe, raising the possibility that they may have had Neanderthals among their recent ancestors after they migrated to Europe. Previous studies on modern humans from over 40,000 years ago, had found evidence of such recent admixture events between modern humans and Neanderthals. However, no such evidence for recent Neanderthal admixture was detected in the genomes of the Zlatý kůň/Ranis individuals. “The fact that modern human groups, which may have arrived in Europe later, carry such Neanderthal ancestry while Ranis and Zlatý kůň do not could mean that the older Zlatý kůň/Ranis lineage may have entered Europe by a different route or did not overlap as extensively with the regions where Neanderthals lived” speculates Kay Prüfer, who co-supervised the study.
The Zlatý kůň/Ranis population represents the earliest known divergence from the group of modern humans that migrated out of Africa and dispersed later across Eurasia. Despite this early separation, the Neanderthal ancestry in Zlatý kůň and Ranis originated from the same ancient admixture event that can be detected in all people outside Africa today. By analyzing the length of the segments contributed from Neanderthals in the high-coverage Ranis13 genome and using direct radiocarbon dates on this individual, the researchers dated this shared Neanderthal admixture to between 45,000 and 49,000 years ago. Since all present-day non-African populations share this Neanderthal ancestry with Zlatý kůň and Ranis, this means that around 45,000 to 49,000 years ago, a coherent ancestral non-African population must still have existed.
“These results provide us with a deeper understanding of the earliest pioneers that settled in Europe,” says Johannes Krause, senior author of the study. “They also indicate that any modern human remains found outside Africa that are older than 50,000 years could not have been part of the common non-African population that interbred with Neanderthals and is now found across much of the world.”
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University of California – Berkeley—A new analysis* of DNA from ancient modern humans (Homo sapiens) in Europe and Asia has determined, more precisely than ever, the time period during which Neanderthals interbred with modern humans, starting about 50,500 years ago and lasting about 7,000 years — until Neanderthals began to disappear.
That interbreeding left Eurasians with many genes inherited from our Neanderthal ancestors, which in total make up between 1% and 2% of our genomes today.
The genome-based estimate is consistent with archeological evidence that modern humans and Neanderthals lived side-by-side in Eurasia for between 6,000 and 7,000 years. The analysis, which involved present-day human genomes as well as 58 ancient genomes sequenced from DNA found in modern human bones from around Eurasia, found an average date for Neanderthal-Homo sapiens interbreeding of about 47,000 years ago. Previous estimates for the time of interbreeding ranged from 54,000 to 41,000 years ago.
The new dates also imply that the initial migration of modern humans from Africa into Eurasia was basically over by 43,500 years ago.
“The timing is really important because it has direct implications on our understanding of the timing of the out-of-Africa migration as most non-Africans today inherit 1-2% ancestry from Neanderthals,” said Priya Moorjani, an assistant professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of two senior authors of the study. “It also has implications for understanding the settlement of the regions outside Africa, which is typically done by looking at archeological materials or fossils in different regions of the world.”
The genome analysis, also led by Benjamin Peter of the University of Rochester in New York and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany, will be published in the Dec. 13 print issue of the journal Science. The two lead authors are Leonardo Iasi, a graduate student at MPI-EVA, and Manjusha Chintalapati, a former UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow now at the company Ancestry DNA.
The longer duration of gene flow may help explain, for example, why East Asians have about 20% more Neanderthal genes than Europeans and West Asians. If modern humans moved eastward about 47,000 years ago, as archeological sites suggest, they would already have had intermixed Neanderthal genes.
“We show that the period of mixing was quite complex and may have taken a long time. Different groups could have separated during the 6,000- to 7,000-year period and some groups may have continued mixing for a longer period of time,” Peter said. “But a single shared period of gene flow fits the data best.”
“One of the main findings is the precise estimate of the timing of Neanderthal admixture, which was previously estimated using single ancient samples or in present-day individuals. Nobody had tried to model all of the ancient samples together,” Chintalapati said. “ This allowed us to build a more complete picture of the past”
Neanderthal deserts in the genome
In 2016, Moorjani pioneered a method for inferring the timing of Neanderthal gene flow using often incomplete genomes of ancient individuals. At that time, only five archaic Homo sapiens genomes were available. For the new study, Iasi, Chintalapati and their colleagues employed this technique with 58 previously sequenced genomes of ancient Homo sapiens who lived in Europe, Western and Central Asia over the past 45,000 years and the genomes of 275 worldwide contemporary humans to provide a more precise date — 47,000 years ago. Rather than assuming the gene flow occurred in a single generation, they tried more complex models developed by Iasi and Peter to establish that the interbreeding extended over about 7,000 years, rather than being intermittent.
The timing of the interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans was corroborated by another, independent study conducted by MPI-EVA researchers and scheduled to be published Dec. 12 in the journal Nature. That study, an analysis of two newly sequenced genomes of Homo sapiens that lived about 45,000 years ago, also found a date of 47,000 years ago.
“Although the ancient genomes were published in previous studies, they had not been analyzed to look at Neanderthal ancestry in this detailed way. We created a catalog of Neanderthal ancestry segments in modern humans. By jointly analyzing all these samples together, we inferred the period of gene flow was around 7,000 years,” Chintalapati said. “The Max Planck group actually sequenced new ancient DNA samples that allowed them to date the Neanderthal gene flow directly. And they came up with a similar timing as us.”
The UC Berkeley/MPI-EVA team also analyzed regions of the modern human genome that contain genes inherited from Neanderthals and some areas that are totally devoid of Neanderthal genes. They found that areas lacking any Neanderthal genes, so-called archaic or Neanderthal deserts, developed quickly after the two groups interbred, suggesting that some Neanderthal gene variants in those areas of the genome must have been lethal to modern humans.
Early modern human samples that are older than 40,000 years — samples from Oase cave in Romania, Ust’-Ishim in Russia, Zlatý kůň in the Czech Republic, Tianyuan in China and Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria — already contained these deserts in their genomes.
“We find that very early modern humans from 40,000 years ago don’t have any ancestry in the deserts, so these deserts may have formed very rapidly after the gene flow,” said Iasi. “We also looked at the changes in Neanderthal ancestry frequency over time and across the genome and found regions that are present at high frequency, possibly because they carry beneficial variants that were introgressed from Neanderthals.”
Most of the high-frequency Neanderthal genes are related to immune function, skin pigmentation and metabolism, as reported in some previous studies. One immune gene variant inherited from Neanderthals confers protective effects to coronavirus that causes COVID-19, for example. Some of the Neanderthal genes involved in the immune system and skin pigmentation actually increased in frequency in Homo sapiens over time, implying that they may have been advantageous to human survival.
“Neanderthals were living outside Africa in harsh, Ice Age climates and were adapted to the climate and to the pathogens in these environments. When modern humans left Africa and interbred with Neanderthals, some individuals inherited Neanderthal genes that presumably allowed them to adapt and thrive better in the environment,” Iasi said.
“The fact that we find some of these regions already in 30,000-year-old samples shows that some of these regions were actually adapted immediately after the introgression,” Chintalapati added.
Other genes, such as the gene conferring resistance to coronaviruses, may not have been immediately useful but became useful later on.
“The environment changes and then some genes become beneficial,” Peter said.
Moorjani is currently looking at Neanderthal sequences in people of East Asian descent, who not only have a greater percentage of Neanderthal genes, but also some genes — up to 0.1% of their genome — from another early hominin group, the Denisovans.
“It’s really cool that we can actually peer into the past and see how variants inherited from our evolutionary cousins, Neanderthals and Denisovans, changed over time,” Moorjani said. “This allows us to understand the dynamics of the mixture of Neanderthals and modern humans.”
Other co-authors of the Science paper were postdoctoral fellow Laurits Skov of UC Berkeley and Alba Bossoms Mesa and Mateja Hajdinjak of MPI-EVA. Moorjani’s research was supported by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the National Institutes of Health (R35GM142978).
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Illustration of an encounter between a group of Neanderthals (black) and a group of modern humans (red, top row) with offspring showing recent Neanderthal ancestry (red, bottom row), imagined as a cave art painting. DNA from bones and teeth of these early human ancestors is helping scientists understand the interactions between early Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals they encountered after migrating out of Africa. Leonardo Iasi, MPI-EVA. Figure created with Dall-E and BioRender.com
*Neandertal ancestry through time: Insights from genomes of ancient and present-day humans, Science, 13-Dec-2024. 10.1126/science.adq3010
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Luca Mario Nejrotti, PhD, graduated in Medieval Archaeology at the University of Turin, with a thesis on the archaeology of architecture in fortified structures. He then pursued a PhD at Aix-en-Provence, focusing on medieval hydraulic installations. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with universities and heritage agencies, but he has always preferred independent practice, which has allowed him to explore and deepen his knowledge of different historical periods and contexts.
His interest in archaeological methods led him naturally to studying and teaching in the area between southern Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where the historical landscape features complex connections and relationships, and where one can “breathe” archaeology.
He has been an archaeologist (in pectore) since childhood, and what he has always loved about the profession is the investigative and exploratory aspect, but also the role archaeologists can play as mediators between the historical landscape, past communities, and present ones.
Since 2012, with the Association “Cultura e Territorio,” over which he presides and for which he serves as scientific director, he has run the B.I.S.A., “la Biagiola” International School of Archaeology in Sorano (GR). The school focuses on Landscape Archaeology and the excavation of the multi-layered site of “la Biagiola,” in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture. The school operates year-round, with sessions in February, May, July-August, and October.
Editor’s Note: In this op-ed piece, archaeologist and activist Luca Nejrotti spells out the important considerations that must be made when undertaking renewable energy initiatives in a sustainable way, especially when multiple environmental, cultural, community and archaeological factors are at play. He uses a real-time, real-life example of wind farms and electricity generation and distribution in a critically vulnerable area in Italy as an example.
Sorano, Italy: Italy, a country proverbially rich in archaeological and natural heritage, has recently been the stage for a heated debate between those advocating for an unreserved shift to renewable energy and those calling for a more region-sensitive approach. In a nation that has enshrined its landscape as a key element in its Constitution, this is an intense debate that sees unlikely foes and curious bedfellows.
The “Cultura e Territorio” Association, a group of archaeologists, believes that the archaeologist’s perspective can offer a valuable contribution. As such, the association has taken a stand, particularly against a project in an area we know very well: the construction of 8 industrial wind turbines on the Sorano mountain, in southern Tuscany, at the border of Lazio and Umbria. This project will be managed and executed by “Energia Sorano”, by Fred Olsen Renewables Italy S.r.l., a subsidiary of a much larger company based in Norway, known for building massive offshore installations. Interestingly, like many newly established companies formed to pursue this type of project in Italy, it is undercapitalized relative to the budgets typically required for such large-scale projects, with only 100,000 euros in share capital. They likely plan to recapitalize as needed over time; however, this precarious setup doesn’t inspire confidence in the timely coverage of construction, routine and extraordinary maintenance, and decommissioning costs.
It’s important to note that this project is still in the planning phase. This means that if the concerns of local and broader communities are heeded, the project may not proceed. However, if it does, construction could begin as early as the end of 2025. The push for ecological transition in Europe, especially post-COVID, has been rapid and backed by substantial funding. But many opportunists have seized this momentum to speculate, and now hundreds of projects have emerged in Italy, before the country even had the opportunity to establish comprehensive, sector-specific regulations.
As it stands, local governments are tasked with identifying areas suitable for renewable energy installations. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Environment and Energy Security is overwhelmed by a flood of proposals with designs to slip through before updated regulations are in place. Many of these proposals exploit older regulations intended for smaller, less intrusive projects, opening the door to large, disruptive installations.
In the case of Sorano (with just eight turbines), the project’s documentation technically meets legal requirements. However, a deeper examination reveals glaring flaws. The reports on local regulations, fauna, flora, geology, archaeology, and public health are superficial, rely on outdated data, overlook key regulations that protect areas like ours, and selectively omit critical information (such as the failure to mention a castle that lies within the construction zone). In cases where data is clearly missing, the proposal simply promises to conduct necessary assessments (e.g., soil stability tests) only after construction begins.
If these oversights go unchallenged, there is a real risk that the project will be approved in Rome, where reviewers may lack local knowledge and resources to carry out comprehensive checks. This could result in the approval of an unfeasible project, which, once construction starts, could stall, leaving behind a devastated landscape with no clear path to restoration.
One key concern is the scale of the proposed wind farm, which, although consisting of a small number of turbines, must be considered in the context of the over fifty other renewable energy projects planned for the area spanning Tuscany, Lazio, and Umbria. This region, home to the same unique landscape, culture, and natural beauty, suffers from being sparsely populated, economically disadvantaged, and politically underrepresented. If all these projects, many proposed by the same companies, were approved, they could irrevocably alter the landscape and ecosystem.
The local community in Sorano and the surrounding communities of Lazio and Maremma have already voiced strong opposition to the project, and our association, which has worked for years to protect and promote the cultural heritage of this region, has officially raised concerns. The very nature of the land makes the site proposed for the wind turbines highly unsuitable. These massive turbines, each 200 meters tall with rotor diameters of 160 meters, would require foundations of reinforced concrete with a diameter of 24.5 meters and a depth of 3.4 meters. The entire construction area is located in a rare karst landscape, a unique geological formation created by seismic activity in the Pleistocene. The land here is already prone to landslides, which are actively monitored, making it an inherently unstable site for such large-scale development. The stresses imposed by a major construction project, involving new roads, excavation, and the installation of oversized turbines, could cause significant environmental damage and be utterly dangerous for the houses all around.
Further compounding the issue, the site is located near the Monte Penna Nature Reserve, home to many vulnerable bat species and birds of prey such as the red kite, buzzard, peregrine falcon, and owl. These species rely on the area for nesting and migratory routes. While eight turbines may seem modest, when combined with the hundreds of others planned for the region, they would form an unnatural barrier to critical ecological corridors, which are vital for wildlife migrations along the Fiora, Paglia, and Tiber river valleys (which are now officially protected by regional laws).
The archaeological significance of the area only adds to the complexity of the situation. The construction site would require the movement of heavy machinery, widening of existing tracks, and the creation of new roads, all of which could damage important archaeological sites. The Roccaccia of Montevitozzo, a medieval fortress dating back to at least the 12th century, stands at the heart of this area. The castle was a strategic stronghold contested in the Middle Ages by the Aldobrandeschi, Siena, and Orvieto, and offers one of the most breathtaking panoramic views of the region. It even appears in a Papal Bull from 1188, alongside references to its village and church, both of which remain to be discovered.
Nearby, evidence of prehistoric occupation, including a hillfort at Monte Penna and a cinnabar mine at Cornacchino, where tools dating back to the Neolithic have been found, further highlights the region’s rich archaeological history. All of this could be jeopardized by the proposed wind farm.
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Above and below: the Roccaccia of Montevitozzo, a medieval fortress dating back to at least the 12th century. Image courtesy Luca Nejrotti
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The “la Biagiola” archaeological site, located within the Sorano/Sovana area. Image courtesy Luca Nejrotti.
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Why has this area been targeted for such large-scale energy projects? The reasons are logistical, not environmental. Border zones in Italy typically face fewer restrictions, making them attractive. Furthermore, this region is located along the route of the yet-to-be-built Hyper Grid, a high-voltage cable network that will transport renewable energy from Sardinia to northern Italy and central Europe. Its Central Link, which will pass through our area, will significantly reduce energy transport costs. However, the energy generated will not be used locally. Rather, following an outdated development model, it will be distributed over long distances, benefiting distant areas with no direct benefit to the local community.
None of these energy projects include compensation for the disruption caused to local populations, let alone financial restitution for the use of the land, once a standard practice. Today, in the name of the public good and the energy crisis, land is expropriated at below-market rates, (only for the areas set to be built, even though the whole land will no longer be usable).
The long-term damage, however, goes beyond economic loss. It risks undermining the sustainable development models that have been painstakingly established in this region, models focused on sustainable tourism, agriculture, pastoralism, collective well-being, solidarity, and respect for the environment. Transforming this area into a major energy hub would nullify these efforts and disregard the local community’s values and needs.
Finally, these regions are already producing more renewable energy than is required by European targets, further raising the question: why destroy this unique landscape and heritage for a project that offers no return to those who call it home?
The history of these places and landscapes reflects a delicate balance between humans, the environment, and resources, a balance that has been shaped over millennia through great sacrifices. From an archaeologist’s perspective, we must seek development models that preserve this fragile equilibrium, learning from the past while addressing the potential and challenges of the future.
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PLOS—A research group led by Johannes Müller at the Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology, at Kiel University, Germany, have shed light on the lives of people who lived over 5,600 years ago near Kosenivka, Ukraine. Published on December 11, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, the researchers present the first detailed bioarchaeological analyses of human diets from this area and provide estimations on the causes of death of the individuals found at this site.
The people associated with the Neolithic Cucuteni-Trypilla culture lived across Eastern Europe from approximately 5500 to 2750 BCE. With up to 15,000 inhabitants, some of their mega-sites are among the earliest and largest city-like settlements in prehistoric Europe. Despite the vast number of artefacts the Trypillia left behind, archeologists have found very few human remains. Due to this absence, many facets of the lives of this ancient people are still undiscovered.
The researchers studied a settlement site near Kosenivka, Ukraine. Comprised of several houses, this site is unique for the presence of human remains. The 50 human bone fragments recovered among the remains of a house stem from at least seven individuals—children, adults, males and a female, perhaps once inhabitants of the house. The remains of four of the individuals were also heavily burnt. The researchers were keen to explore potential causes for these burns, such as an accidental fire, or a rare form of burial rite.
The burnt bone fragments were largely found in the center of the house, and previous studies surmised the inhabitants of this site died in a house fire. Scrutinizing the pieces of bone under a microscope, the researchers concluded that the burning probably occurred quickly after death. In the case of an accidental fire, the researchers propose that some individuals could have died of carbon monoxide poisoning, even if they fled the house.
According to radiocarbon dating, one of the individuals died ca. 100 years later. The death of this person cannot be connected to the fire, but is otherwise unknown. Two other individuals with unhealed cranial injuries raise the question of whether violence could have played a role as well. A review of Trypillian human bone finds showed the researchers that less than 1% of the dead were cremated, and even more rarely buried within a house.
While bones can help archeologists speculate how ancient people died, these remains can also help us understand how they lived. By analyzing the carbon and nitrogen present in the bones—as well as in grains and the remains of animals found at the site—the researchers determined meat made up less than 10% of the inhabitants’ diets. This is in line with teeth found at the site, which have wear marks that indicate chewing on grains and other plant fibers. That Trypillia diets consisted mostly of plants supports theories that cattle in these cultures were primarily used for manuring the fields and milk rather than meat production.
Katharina Fuchs, first author of the study, adds: “Skeletal remains are real biological archives. Although researching the Trypillia societies and their living conditions in the oldest city-like communities in Eastern Europe will remain challenging, our ‘Kosenvika case’ clearly shows that even small fragments of bone are of great help. By combining new osteological, isotopic, archaeobotanical and archaeological information, we provide an exceptional insight into the lives—and perhaps also the deaths—of these people.”
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Archaeological context of Kosenivka. A: Map showing the location of the settlement of Kosenivka and the Chalcolithic sites referred to in the text. B: Photo showing the location of house 6 within the landscape. C: Photo showing house 6 being excavated, in 2004 (Map: R. Hofmann. Photos: republished from Kruts et al. [22] under a CC BY license with permission from V. Chabanyuk, original copyright 2005). Fuchs et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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Kosenivka, selection of oral and pathological conditions. A–E: Individual 5/6/+left maxilla. A: Teeth positions 23–26 (buccal view). Signs of periodontal inflammation (upper arrows) and examples of dental calculus accumulation (third arrow) and dental chipping (lower arrow) on the first premolar (tooth 24). B: First premolar (24, mesial view). Interproximal grooving with horizonal striations on the lingual surface of the root (upper arrow) and at the cemento–enamel junction (middle arrow). Larger chipping lesion (lower arrow). C: Canine (23, distal view). Interproximal grooving, same location as on the neighbouring premolar (see B), but less distinct. D, E: Signs of periosteal reaction on the left maxillary sinus (medio–superior view). Increased vessel impressions (D, upper arrow) and porosity, as well as uneven bone surface (D, lower arrow, E), indicating inflammatory processes. F: Individual 2, left temporal, fragment (endocranial view). Periosteal reaction indicated by porous new bone formation (arrow). G: Individual 5, frontal bone (endocranial view). Periosteal reaction indicated by tongue-like new bone formation and increased vessel impressions (arrows). H: Individual 5/6/+, frontal bone, right part, orbital roof (inferior view). Signs of cribra orbitalia (evidenced by porosity, see arrow). Illustration: K. Fuchs. Fuchs et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON! Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views!Join usin this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!
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