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Sound Phenomena Influenced Ancient Art and Architecture, Say Researchers

Posted on October 28, 2014 by No Author -

During a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Indianapolis October 27 – 31, 2014, Steven J. Waller of Rock Art Acoustics describes how prehistoric people may have interpreted sound phenomena as supernatural occurrences, and then reflected them in their culture as depicted on cave walls and in stone architecture.*

“Ancient mythology explained echoes from the mouths of caves as replies from spirits, so our ancestors may have made cave paintings in response to these echoes and their belief that echo spirits inhabited rocky places such as caves or canyons,” explains Waller.

Just as light reflection gives an illusion of seeing yourself duplicated in a mirror, sound waves reflecting off a surface are mathematically identical to sound waves emanating from a virtual sound source behind a reflecting plane such as a large cliff face. “This can result in an auditory illusion of somebody answering you from within the rock,” Waller says.

Echoes of clapping can sound similar to hoof beats, as Waller points out, while multiple echoes within a cavern can blur together into a thunderous reverberation that mimics the sound of a herd of stampeding hoofed animals.

“Many ancient cultures attributed thunder in the sky to ‘hoofed thunder gods,’ so it makes sense that the reverberation within the caves was interpreted as thunder and inspired paintings of those same hoofed thunder gods on cave walls,” says Waller. “This theory is supported by acoustic measurements, which show statistically significant correspondence between the rock art sites and locations with the strongest sound reflection.”

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Prehistoric paintings of hoofed animals in a cave with thunderous reverberations, located in Bhimbetka, India. Courtesy S. Waller

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Other acoustical characteristics may have also been misinterpreted by ancient cultures unaware of sound wave theory. Waller noticed a resemblance between an interference pattern and Stonehenge, so he set up an interference pattern in an open field with just two flutes “droning the same note” to explore what it would sound like.

“The quiet regions of destructive sound wave cancellation, in which the high pressure from one flute cancelled the low pressure from the other flute, gave blindfolded subjects the illusion of a giant ring of rocks or ‘pillars’ casting acoustic shadows,” Waller says.

He traveled to England and demonstrated that Stonehenge does indeed radiate acoustic shadows that recreate the same pattern as interference. “My theory that musical interference patterns served as blueprints for megalithic stone circles—many of which are called Pipers’ Stones—is supported by ancient legends of two magic pipers who enticed maidens to dance in a circle and turned them all into stones,” he notes.

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Stonehenge Julie Anne Workman, Wikimedia Commons

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There are several important implications of Waller’s research. Perhaps most significantly, it demonstrates that acoustical phenomena were culturally significant to early humans—leading to the immediate conclusion that the natural soundscapes of archaeological sites should be preserved in their natural state for further study and greater appreciation.

Waller’s observations and conclusions are among a number of other research findings by other scientists exploring this phenomena. Beginning in 2008, a recent and ongoing study of the massive 6,000-year-old stone structure complex known as the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum on the island of Malta, for example, has produced some revelatory results. Like its related prehistoric temple structures on Malta, this structure features central corridors and curved chambers. But this structure is unique in that it is subterranean, created through the removal of an estimated 2,000 tons of stone carved out with stone hammers and antler picks. Low voices within its walls create eerie, reverberating echoes, and a sound made or words spoken in certain places can be clearly heard throughout all of its three levels. Some scientists have suggested, based on research experimentation, that certain sound vibration frequencies created when sound is emitted within its walls may have actually altered human brain functions of those within earshot.

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Interior view of the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum. Помещенеи гипогея, Wikimedia Commons

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But the Hypogeum is not alone in its peculiar sound effects. A study conducted in 1994 by a consortium from Princeton University found that acoustic behavior in ancient chambers at megalithic sites such as Newgrange in Ireland and Wayland’s Smithy in England was characterized by a strong sustained resonance, or “standing wave” in a frequency range between 90 Hz and 120 Hz. “When this happens,” says Linda Eneix, President of the Old Temples Study Foundation, “what we hear becomes distorted, eerie. The exact pitch for this behavior varies with the dimensions of the room and the quality of the stone.” Going further back in time, she points to the ancient 10,000 B.C. site of Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey. Built by hunter-gatherers, the site is thought by many scientists to be located in the area transitional to the first development of agriculture and domesticated livestock. Located on a hilltop, it consists of 20 round stone-built structures which had been buried. Excavation has revealed massive, T-shaped standing limestone pillars. “In the center of a circular shrine,” she says, “a limestone pillar “sings” when smacked with the flat of the hand. Obviously made to represent a human with a decorated belt and hands carved in relief at its waist, it bears unexplained symbols in the area of the throat.”

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Panoramic view of Göbekli Tepe Rolf Cosar, Wikimedia Commons

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Moreover, findings of another archaeoacoustic study suggests that the ancients of the 3,000-year-old Andean ceremonial center at Chavín de Huántar, in the central highlands of Peru, practiced a fine art and science of manipulating sound with architecture to produce desired sensory effects. With the assistance of architectural form and placement, and sounds emitted from conch-shell trumpets, the “oracle” of Chavín de Huántar “spoke” to the ancient center’s listeners.

Says Dr. Miriam Kolar, leader of the study and an expert on the human perception of sound in cultural contexts:   ”At Chavín, we have discovered acoustic evidence for selective sound transmission between the site’s Lanzon monolith and the Circular Plaza: an architectural acoustic filter system that favors sound frequencies of the Chavín pututus [conch-shell trumpets] and human voice.”

The Lanzon is a sacred statue or stela depicting the central deity of the ancient Chavín culture. Thought to be Chavin’s central “oracle” for its inhabitants, it is housed in a chamber, part of a series of underground passages within the Old Temple of the ceremonial and religious center of Chavín de Huántar. A central duct was built to connect the area of the Lanzon monolith with that of the Circular Plaza, an open-air place of ceremonial activity and significance. The duct was specifically designed to filter and magnify or conduct to a certain sound range—namely, the special range emitted by the Chavín pututu instrument. The specific reasons for this acoustical configuration are not entirely understood, but studies involving human participants within the context of the site indicated that the resultant sound effects may have been related to intentional auditory perceptual effects of sound and space on humans.

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View of Chavín de Huántar Sharon odb, Wikimedia Commons

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The Lanzon within its interior chamber at Chavín de Huántar Reto Luescher, Wikimedia Commons

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The circular plaza at Chavín de Huántar Martin St.-Amant, Wikimedia Commons

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So what does all of this mean? What explains these similar, yet chronologically, geographically and culturally disparate finds?

“How curious that such varied ancient structures, separated by so much time and distance, should have common features which imply sophisticated knowledge”, observes Eneix. “Did the architects of the day each make and develop their own discoveries or did they inherit a concept from some older school of learning?”

Scientists may never have the answer to that question, but the accumulating evidence suggests that there is a real story to tell about humans and their fascination with sound.

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Presentation: “Virtual sound images and virtual sound absorbers misinterpreted as supernatural objects,” by Stephen J. Waller, Tuesday, October 28, 2014 at the Indianapolis Mariott Downtown Hotel Marriott.

Cover Photo, Top Left: Prehistoric paintings of hoofed animals in a cave with thunderous reverberations, located in Bhimbetka, India. Courtesy S. Waller

Source: Adpated and edited from a press release of the Acoustical Society of America, with additional material added.

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition. We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

Genetic Study Shows Early Contact Between Easter Islanders and South Americans

Posted on October 23, 2014 by No Author -

Hundreds of years before Dutch commander Jakob Roggeveen and his ships arrived at Easter Island in the Pacific in 1722, the native Rapa Nui islanders had already made contact with South Americans.

So suggests an international team of researchers led by Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas and Eske Willerslev of the Natural History Museum of Denmark’s Centre for GeoGenetics, who analyzed genome-wide data for 27 Rapa Nui individuals. While they detected mostly Polynesian ancestry, they also found “genome-wide patterns consistent with Native American and European admixture”, and that the “Native American admixture occurred before the European admixture.” By comparing their data with other data set proportions, they determined that the Native American proportion was significantly greater than that detected in other Polynesians and Europeans. Moreover, “by considering the distribution of local ancestry tracts of eight unrelated Rapa Nui, we found statistical support for Native American admixture dating to AD 1280 – 1495 and European admixture dating to AD 1850 – 1895.”* The research study is published in the Cell Press journal, Current Biology.

The results are consistent with other archaeological evidence that suggests contact, such as the finding that crops that were native to the Americas existed in Polynesia, including the Andean sweet potato, long before European contact. The results of another study (also published in Current Biology) by Malaspinas and Eske Willerslev and their colleagues, wherein they examined two human skulls of the indigenous “Botocudos” of Brazil, found that their genomic ancestry is Polynesian, with no detectable Native American component.

“These genetic results,” report the researchers in their published study, “can be explained by one or more pre-European trans-Pacific contacts.”*

Easter Island,a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, is well-known for its monumental statues called moai, created by the early Rapa Nui people. Archaeological evidence shows that Polynesian people settled on Easter Island in the first millennium AD and developed a sustained civilization there. But the Rapa Nui significantly declined due to the introduction of the Polynesian rat, and overpopulation led to gradual deforestation and extinction of natural resources, leading to the demise of its civilization.

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Above and below: The Rapanui are best known for building giant stone platforms and statues. Courtesy Natalia Solar

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Archaeological studies and evidence has shown that the Polynesians had the technological and knowledge capacity to execute long-range voyages across the Pacific, consistent with the time range results of the genetic study. This new evidence related to the Rapa Nui suggests one of two scenarios, according to the study authors: either Native Americans sailed to Rapa Nui or Polynesians sailed to the Americas and back. The researchers suggest that it was more likely that the Rapanui successfully made the trip back and forth, given simulations presented in previous studies showing that “all sailing voyages heading intentionally east from Rapa Nui would always reach the Americas, with a trip lasting from two weeks to approximately two months.” On the other hand, the trip from the Americas to Rapa Nui is much more challenging, given that Rapanui is a small target, making it likely to fail or miss the island completely.

For Malaspinas, the findings are a reminder that “early human populations extensively explored the planet. Textbook versions of human colonization events—the peopling of the Americas, for example—need to be re-evaluated utilizing genomic data.”

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* http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)01220-2

Also adapted and edited from a Cell Press news release.

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Archaeologists Discover Highest Altitude Ice Age Human Occupation Site

Posted on October 23, 2014 by No Author -

At two sites high in the southern Peruvian Andes, scientists have discovered remains that suggest human settlement about 12,000 years ago. At more than 4,000 meters above sea level (masl), they are now the highest sites for continuous human occupation ever recorded, predating the earliest known settlements by almost 900 years.

Led by Kurt Rademaker, a University of Maine visiting assistant professor in anthropology, the team investigated one site at 4,355 masl that yielded 260 stone tools such as projectile points, nondiagnostic bifaces and unifacial scrapers, which they dated to as much as 12,800 years old. The other site, the Cuncaicha rockshelter at 4,480 masl, contained lithic tools made from locally available obsidian, andesite and jasper, as well as plant remains, bones of vicuña and guanaco camelids and the taruca deer. The site also featured sooted ceilings and rock art, indicating that it was likely a base camp. It had a “robust, well-preserved and well-dated occupation sequence” up to 12,400 years old.

“We don’t know if people were living there year round, but we strongly suspect they were not just going there to hunt for a few days, then leaving,” says archaeologist Sonia Zarrillo of the University of Calgary, a key member of the research team. “There were possibly even families living at these sites, because we’ve found evidence of a whole range of activities.” This is a significant finding that lends important clues, because previous archaeological and anthropological studies have indicated that “hunters passing through an area will take the meat back to campsites and leave the carcass in the field,” adds Zarrillo. “In Cuncaicha we found remains representing whole animals, indicating they were living close to where the animals were killed. And the types of stone tools we’ve found are not only hunting tools but also scraping tools used for processing hides to make things like clothing, bags or blankets.”

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Nevado Coropuna, the highland area of the sites. Courtesy Kurt Rademaker

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Cuncaicha Rock Shelter. Courtesy Kurt Rademaker

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Excavations at Cuncaicha Rock Shelter. Courtesy Kurt Rademaker

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But the biggest takeaway from the sites has to do with their remote, high altitude locations, the physiology of humans, and the date ranges of the remains recovered. A widely held theory suggests that humans must adapt genetically to high altitudes before they can sustain their presence there as permanent living environments. Given the commonly accepted theory that people first entered the Americas around 14-15,000 years ago, the age of the site archaeological remains suggests a relatively rapid genetic adaptation. The Andeans of today have genetically adapted to their high altitude environment, Zarrillo notes. The key differences between the Andeans and most other Native Americans in this regard include a higher metabolic rate, larger lung capacity and higher hemoglobin concentrations than the former. These adaptations have allowed them to overcome a lack of oxygen.

“Was this adaptation present 12,400 years ago? We don’t know for certain,” says Zarrillo. “What we’re demonstrating is that these people either already developed that adaptation, or, it was possible for them to live in these altitudes for extended periods of time regardless.”

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University of Calgary archaeologist Sonia Zarrillo uses ground penetrating radar at a Peruvian rock shelter. She is accompanied by Peter Leach, one of her co-authors for the paper published in the October 24th edition of the academic journal Science. Courtesy Walter Beckwith

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Finding the anwers to these questions will be among the objectives of future research.

Write the researchers in the report, “the Pucuncho Basin sites suggest that Pleistocene humans lived successfully at extreme high altitude, initiating organismal selection, developmental functional adaptations and lasting biogeographic expansion in the Andes. As new studies identify potential genetic signatures of high-altitude adaptation in modern Andean populations, comparative genomic, physiologic and archaeological research will be needed to understand when and how these adaptations evolved.”*

The detailed study report is published in the journal Science.

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Kurt Rademaker (University of Maine, University of Tubingen), who led the expedition high in the Peruvian Andes. Courtesy Walter Beckwith

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*”Paleoindian settlement of the high-altitude Peruvian Andes,” by K. Rademaker; G.R.M. Bromley; D.H. Sandweiss at University of Maine in Orono, ME; G. Hodgins at University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ; K. Moore at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA; S. Zarrillo at University of Calgary in Calgary, BC, Canada; C. Miller at University of Tübingen in Tübingen, Germany; P. Leach at University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT; D.A. Reid at University of Illinois-Chicago in Chicago, IL; W.Y. Álvarez. Published in the journal Science. http://www.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1258260

Source: Adapted and edited from press releases of the University of Maine and the University of Calgary.

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Researchers Discover Prehistoric Human Habitation Sites in the Nefud Desert

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Dan McLerran -

As Founder and Editor of Popular Archaeology Magazine, Dan is a freelance writer and journalist specializing in archaeology. He studied anthropology and archaeology in undergraduate and graduate school and has been an active participant on archaeological excavations in the U.S. and abroad. He is the creator and administrator of Archaeological Digs, a popular weblog about archaeological excavation and field school opportunities.

Looking down from space in earth orbit, the Nefud Desert appears as an arid oval depression across the northern reaches of the Arabian Peninsula. On the ground, it is known for its sudden violent winds, large crescent-shaped dunes, and brick-red colored sand. It is 290 km (180 miles) long and 225 km (140 miles) wide, with an area of 103,600 km² (40,000 square miles). It sees rain only once or twice a year.

But in antiquity, there were lakes scattered across this otherwise unforgiving land.

Dr. Eleanor M.L. Scerri of the University of Bordeaux and her colleagues call them ‘paleolakes’. Today these ancient lakes are only arid areas with sediments and other stratigraphic features that tell us that there was once water in these places. But investigating scientists have also found that they contain fossil flora, fauna and archaeological features and artifacts— evidence that, at one time, tens of thousands of years ago, there were also plants, animals, and humans along their shores.

In a research report published online in the journal Quaternary International, Scerri and colleagues detail their discovery of 13 sites dated to Lower (2.5 m to 300,000 years ago) and Middle (300,000 to 30,000 years ago) Palaeolithic times that are associated with palaeolake basins. “One of the sites, T’is al Ghadah, may feature the earliest Middle Palaeolithic assemblage of Arabia,” writes Scerri, et al.*. The sites were discovered during a regional survey conducted under the auspices of the Palaeodeserts Project.

“Preliminary analyses show that the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic sites discovered display diverse technological characteristics, indicating that the Nefud was important for population turnovers and exchanges throughout the Pleistocene. Periodic environmental amelioration [improvement, or wet periods] appears to have attracted hominin [early human] incursions into the region, and subsequent ephemeral (short-term) occupations structured around lakes and, to a lesser extent, raw material sources.”*

In other words, according to Scerri and her research colleagues, ancient humans came and went in this region, following the rivers and settling around the lakes during wet periods, bringing with them stone tool cultures that differed among groups depending upon the time period of their arrival and their culture and, perhaps, where they originally came from. Who were these ancient humans? What human species did they represent? This is still a question open to debate among scholars…………thus far, no human fossils have been found at any of the sites.

Despite the diversity in their technologies, the researchers suggest that there was at least one common characteristic among these various ancient groups. “A rarity of formal tools, but strong similarities in lithic production techniques, are also suggestive of demographic affinities across the Nefud during the Pleistocene, and perhaps beyond”.* So how they produced their tools could give clues to their cross-cultural relationship, and perhaps their common origins.

The recent survey is one of a number of efforts by researchers under the Palaeodeserts Project designed to collect data that could eventually either support or refute their research model of human dispersal and habitation from northeastern Africa through Arabia and beyond. For Scerri, including Palaeodeserts Project head Michael Petraglia, early modern humans may have arrived at various times from northeastern Africa, traversing what is called the ‘Saharo-Arabian belt’ via land routes perhaps as early as more than 100,000 years ago and eventually crossing or settling in India. It is a theory, based on years of past research, that may help to explain how Southwest Asia saw the presence of early modern humans in prehistory. Considered controversial by some scholars, it contrasts with one widely-held theory that holds that early modern humans dispersed rapidly out of Africa into South Asia primarily along the coasts about 55,000 years ago. Championed by scholars such as Sir Paul Mellars, the evidence for this movement shows up in small blade technologies, very similar to stone tools made in what is called the ‘Howiesons Poort‘ industries of southern Africa, and symbolic items such as beads, incised and decorated items and bone tools. But Scerri, Petraglia, and others suggest a different scenario. “Human movements across Southern Asia would have been slow, continental advances during humid periods, and contractions (and even extinctions) during arid periods. This is opposed to the view that modern humans moved rapidly out of Africa and across Asia circa 60,000 years ago using coastal corridors. Mapping of environments from Arabia to Southeast Asia indicate dramatic variability in habitats. We argue that differences in environments would have shaped demographic responses through time.” Moreover, write the Paleodeserts Project authors, “major revisions in genetic coalescence ages, based on nuclear genome studies, suggest that Out of Africa movements may date to 120,000 years ago, which would correspond with fossils of Homo sapiens in the Levant and Middle Palaeolithic technologies in southern Asia.”**

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View of area being surveyed for archaeological sites in the western part of the Nefud desert. (credit: Eleanor Scerri/Palaeodeserts Project)

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Sediments at the Jubbah site, a site excavated in the Nefud Desert, show environmental change through time. Young orange sand is on the surface; white sediments represent a phase of lake formation around 125,000 years ago; the fine sands below this date to more than 200,000 thousand years ago and contain some of the oldest identified Middle Palaeolithic artifacts in Arabia. (credit: Huw Groucutt/Palaeodeserts Project)

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Above: Topographic map showing locations of lithic artifacts around the Jubbah Paleolake. Jubbah is one among a number of sites in the Nefud that provide evidence of a Middle Palaeolithic human presence.

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Answering the questions revolving around whether or not early modern humans crossed over into Asia from Africa via coastal or inland routs, or both—and when—will be left to further research. But evidence thus far suggests an ancient human presence in the Nefud that may bear significantly on the study of prehistoric human dispersal. Conclude the report authors:

“These preliminary results support the view that the Arabian Peninsula was a critically important region of southwest Asia during the Late Pleistocene, in which demographic responses to climatic amelioration may have structured connectivity across the Saharo-Arabian belt, the Levant and as far as India.”*

But as Scerri, Petraglia, and other scholars would likely say, time and more research will tell the story.

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For a more extensive review of the discoveries now being made in Saudi Arabia, see the featured premium article published in the June 2014 issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine.

*Abstract from: Eleanor M.L. Scerri, Paul S. Breeze, Ash Parton, Huw S. Groucutt,Tom S. White, Christopher Stimpson, Laine Clark-Balzan, Richard Jennings, Abdullah Alsharekh, Michael D. Petraglia, Middle to Late Pleistocene human habitation in the western Nefud Desert, Saudi Arabia, DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2014.09.036 2014 Quaternary International

**http://trackingourancestors.com/

Cover Photo, Top Left: View of area being surveyed for archaeological sites in the western part of the Nefud desert. (credit: Eleanor Scerri/Palaeodeserts Project)

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Archaeologists Excavate Roman Frontier Site in Romania

Posted on October 16, 2014 by No Author -

It is an archaeological site, but one needs some imagination to picture an ancient Roman fort abutting a major waterway at this place.

“When you first enter the site you are on a very small hill, about three meters at the most above the surrounding farmland to the north and east,” writes blogger Lucy MacDonald, who spent part of her summer as a volunteer excavator at the site. It is known as the location of ancient Halmyris, a Roman frontier stronghold in present-day Romania. “Those farm fields used to be the Danube river; however, the river has receded about 300 meters from where it used to be. We know this because there are two man-made harbours at Halmyris, therefore the Danube would have come right up to the fort. The fort had approximately twelve towers, and with good reason. The location of Halmyris is important because it intersects two important commercial shipping waters, the Danube and the Black Sea. However, this also made it a target for Roman enemies—which was EVERYONE.”*

In a real sense, the site of Halmyris tells a story of an empire under siege from enemies without—and as anyone with a knowledge of classical history knows, Rome had many enemies. Strategically located Halmyris, at its fortified height, was a target for Germanic tribes, Goths, and Huns, to name a few of the most prominent. Halmyris, however, was also more anciently a point of trade and contact between the more indigenous inhabitants of the region and colonizing, merchant Greeks. Much later, it was also a Byzantine fortification and settlement. But Halmyris is perhaps best known by visitors and pilgrims alike as a place of martyrdom. In 290 CE, two Christian missionaries, Astion and Epictet, were imprisoned, tortured, and executed by the Romans here. They were later reburied under orders of the emperor Constantine I (c 324/325) in a crypt under the altar of a newly built basilica within the fort. The Church later canonized them, and today pilgrims of the Romanian Orthodox Church visit a nearby monastery built in honor of the saints. “Dirt delivered by the river eventually spread over the site, until only the jagged tops of the towers and walls were visible to those wandering the hills south of the Danube,” reports the Halmyris excavation project at its project website. “Hundreds of years later, locals would tell stories about the treasure hidden inside the mysterious walls, and of the spirits that guarded the site. These stories were perhaps vindicated, when Professor M. Zahariade [currently with the Vasile Parvan Institute of Archaeology, Bucharest] later discovered the remains of the Christian martyrs in a hidden crypt within Halmyris.”**

Today, Zahariade is meticulously recovering and researching the remains of Halmyris with the help of a team of scholars, archaeologists, students and volunteers. To date, they have uncovered a significant amount of new edifices and artifacts, including features of the ancient harbor located below the walls of the fort, a structure adjacent to the walls, a 6^th century defensive tower, other well-preserved architectural features and numerous small finds including coins, weaponry, and ceramics indicating intense activity related to Roman occupation.

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Above, excavators hard at work at Halmyris. Photo credit Lucy MacDonald from her blog, Istanbul not Constantinople.

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“For the field season of 2015, we hope to concentrate efforts in multiple areas of the site, including the monumental entrance-way, the northeastern wall, two defensive towers/bastions and, last but not least, on areas of the urban (civilian) center,” reports project management. “We also intend to begin work on an especially large structure (as revealed by a GPR survey) near the western gate. This will undoubtedly be a season of particular significance and proliferation of finds, as the nearby areas have proven especially rich in archaeological material.”**

More information about the Halmyris project can be obtained at the website. In addition, one can read the personal account of dig volunteer Lucy MacDonald at her blog site.

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* http://instanbulnotconstantinoople.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/romans-in-romania.html

** http://www.halmyris.org/

Cover Photo, Top Left: Excavators hard at work at Halmyris. Photo credit Lucy MacDonald

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Archaeologists Make Surprising Discovery at Neolithic Site in Scotland

Posted on October 14, 2014 by No Author -

It wasn’t a buried cache of gold or silver that excavators came across as they methodically dug down through the remains of one of Scotland’s most ancient archaeological sites. But in a very important sense, the discovery was equally exciting.

They were the skeletal remains of an animal—a very, very big one. And a very old one.

“It is so big that there was an immediate need for an expert opinion,” reported the Dig Diary blogger for the Ness of Brodgar Excavations project.

So they called upon Jen Harland, an expert at identifying faunal remains.

“She has confirmed that the bones belong to an enormous cow—so big indeed that it is probably off the scale for the biggest known modern cow and into the range for an aurochs.”*

This is considered big news, because the aurochs, a huge, prehistoric ancestor to the modern day cow, is now extinct, the last one having died in the Jaktorów Forest, Poland in 1627. But even during Neolithic times, they had already become relatively rare.

Thus far, the animal’s massive horn core has been revealed, along with part of the skull. But much more work needs to be done when the excavators return for the next season. “Further identification will be needed and this will have to wait until next year when the contexts can be properly excavated without the need to rush,” continues the blog report. “However, it will have important implications for our understanding of the agricultural economy of the Neolithic in Orkney, and for the range of animals present at that time.”*

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The aurochs pictured above is dated to about 7500 BC and is one of two very well preserved aurochs skeletons found in Denmark. The Vig-aurochs can be seen at the National Museum of Denmark. The circles indicate where the animal was wounded by arrows in antiquity. Malene Thyssen, Wikimedia Commons

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View of the excavation site of Ness of Brodgar. Genevieve Romier, Wikimedia Commons

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Archaeologists have been excavating in earnest at this now famous Neolithic Era site in the West Mainland of Orkney in northern Scotland ever since a geophysical survey in 2002 revealed anomalies that indicated a buried settlement complex, and then ploughing turned up a large, notched stone slab in a field in 2003. Radiocarbon dates from excavations have since shown that the site was a prehistoric complex that was used for 1,000 years—from at least 3200 BC to 2300 BC.

The animal remains are among the latest of a string of remarkable finds. Other discoveries have revealed a sequence of Neolithic structures, including a large oval structure enclosed by a monumental wall, a symmetrical building, and a structure measuring 25 metres (82 feet) long by 20 meters (65 feet) wide, with the remains of five-meter-thick outer walls still standing at a height of about one meter (three feet). The latter is considered “one of the largest, if not the largest, stone-built Neolithic non-funerary structures in Britain.”* Site investigators have also found evidence that the Neolithic people who lived at the site were using paint to decorate the buildings.

More information about the Ness of Brodgar excavations can be found here.

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*http://www.orkneyjar.com/archaeology/nessofbrodgar/

Cover Photo, Top Left: View of excavation at Ness of Brodgar. Tine, Wikimedia Commons

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Archaeologists Uncover Paleoindian Habitation in Upland Area of Tennessee

Posted on October 8, 2014 by No Author -

Upland areas, far from the more accommodating lowland environments featuring streams, lakes and valleys, have not been as comparatively rich in yielding evidence for early Native American, or Paleoindian, habitation—at least in terms of permanent, ongoing settlement bases. But archaeological excavations at a rock shelter in the Upper Cumberland Plateau (UCP) of Tennessee are revealing finds that could show otherwise.

“At Rock Creek Mortar Shelter on the UCP, we have recorded a more or less continuous record of human occupation from at least the end of the Pleistocene around 11,500 years ago to about AD 1000,” reports Jay Franklin, Associate Professor of Archaeology at East Tennessee University and colleagues. It is unusual because, as they report, “upland areas do not typically fit into conventional models of human settlement, except in cases where they are invoked as marginal areas used for hunting and gathering forays by ancient peoples only to return to their lowland homes.”*

Franklin has been conducting archaeological research in the UCP for well over a decade. At an elevation as much as 1,000 feet above the Tennessee River Valley, it comprises part of a larger region of Appalachia historically known as the “Great Wilderness”, a cultural backwater. But, for Franklin, this “could not be farther from the truth. Prehistoric Native Americans used and occupied these rock shelters and caves for 12,000 years.”*

From within the shelter, Franklin and his team recovered more than a dozen blades from deposits about 1.25 – 2 meters below the surface. They date them to the late Pleistocene and early Holocene periods. Examination of the blades has provided some clues to reconstructing the prehistoric scenario at the location. “A few of the well made blades would be at home in European Late & Epi-Paleolithic assemblages, while a few are poorly executed,” report Franklin and colleagues. “This suggests a family group as opposed to simply a group of male hunters. It may have been that older, skilled knappers were teaching younger novices to make blades on site. It may also be that these earliest inhabitants of the UCP were coping with the constraints of using the small rounded local cobbles of Monteagle Chert for blade production (as opposed to large tabular cherts encountered in the lower Tennessee River drainage).”

“So far, 50 tools/pieces have been analyzed for microscopic use wear,” Franklin continues. “Activities represented in the late Pleistocene/early Holocene levels include early stage hide and meat processing and scraping wood. Two tools possess some sort of residue which we think may be blood. We might tentatively suggest a temporary hunting camp occupied by residentially mobile families.”*

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East Tennessee State University team hard at work at excavations at the Rock Creek Mortar Shelter site. Photo credit Alan Cressler.

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Franklin plans to return to the site in December, 2014, to continue excavations. “We hope to recover blade cores in the coming field season so that we may reconstruct the entire blade production sequence,” he says. “More generally, we will continue to explore why these early people ventured onto this rugged, upland landscape far removed from a major stream and tens of kilometers from primary raw material sources.”*

More information about the Rock Creek Mortar Shelter excavation project, field school, and how one can participate, can be found here.

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*http://faculty.etsu.edu/franklij/etsu_archaeological_field_school_10.htm

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Climate Change Influenced Early Modern Human Occupation of Moroccan Caves, Say Scientists

Posted on October 5, 2014 by No Author -

A central consideration related to prehistoric human settlement of coastal areas worldwide has revolved around climate change. In a paper published online on October 3 in the Journal of Human Evolution, Emilie Campmas of the Université de Bordeaux and colleagues suggest that early modern humans who occupied caves in the Témara region near the coast of Northern Morocco came and went, at least in terms of the intensity of their occupation, in correlation with major shifts in the climate of the region.

“The study area was selected for two main reasons,” write the study authors in their report abstract. “First, it contains numerous caves with Upper Pleistocene deposits, which have yielded remains of anatomically modern humans in association with Aterian and Iberomaurusian artifacts. Second, these caves are currently located on the shore, thus this region is particularly sensitive to major climate change and sea level fluctuations.”*

The researchers conducted a diachronic taphonomic study of the faunal remains recovered from two sites in the Témara region, the El Harhoura 2 and El Mnasra caves. Their study showed alternating human and non-human predator occupations of the sites. They found that the lower layers of the El Mnasra Cave, dating to Oxygen Isotope Stage (OIS) 5 [between 80,000 and 130,000 years ago], yielded the remains of a diverse range of ungulates and that at least some of the remains featured significant “anthropogenic impact marks”, or cut-marks due to human activity, such as the application of stone cutting tools. This evidence was associated with mollusk shells, Nassarius shell beads, hearths, lithics, bone tools, and pigments. They also found that faunal remains in the upper layers dating to later periods in the El Harhoura 2 and El Mnasra caves were predominantly gazelles, showing significant evidence of non-human carnivore activities, “such as tooth marks, numerous semi-digested bones and coprolites” along with significantly fewer anthropogenic signatures (cut marks caused by humans and burnt bones). Moreover, analysis of the lithic evidence at El Harhoura 2 dated to the later periods indicated a less intensive human occupation. “The ‘intensive’ human occupations date to OIS 5 and could have taken place during wet periods in connection with high sea levels, which allowed the exploitation of shellfish in this area,” write the study authors. “‘Non-intensive’ human occupations generally correspond to arid periods and lower sea levels, during which the Témara area was further inland and may have been less attractive to humans”.*

The study may have some implications for understanding or reinforcing the influence of climate change or fluctuations in the scientific modeling of ancient coastal human settlements or migrations/movements in other parts of the world.

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*Emilie Campmas, Patrick Michel, Sandrine Costamagno, Fethi Amani, Emmanuelle Stoetzel, Roland Nespoulet, Mohamed Abdeljalil El Hajraoui, Were Upper Pleistocene human/non-human predator occupations at the Témara caves (El Harhoura 2 and El Mnasra, Morocco) influenced by climate change?, Journal of Human Evolution, 2014, DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2014.08.008

Cover Photo, Top Left: Satellite image of Morocco, Wikimedia Commons

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Artifacts of Christian Nubia Revealed

Posted on October 3, 2014 by No Author -

Thanks to the efforts of Polish archaeologists and a massive UNESCO-led international campaign, a unique assemblage of Nubian art and cultural artifacts from the Christian period (ca. mid-6th-14th centuries) was uncovered. Working under the direction of Prof Kazimierz Michałowski in the ancient city of Faras near the present-day Sudanese-Egyptian border, the team discovered well-preserved ruins of an 8th-century cathedral church. Its walls were decorated with magnificent mural paintings on religious themes, dating from the 8th-14th centuries. The discovery was hailed as the ‘miracle of Faras’. Over 120 paintings were preserved, 67 of which are today in the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw. This collection is accompanied by other finds from Faras. Together they form what is the largest and most valuable collection of archaeological artifacts from overseas excavations that has ever been acquired by a Polish museum.

Now, following an extensive redevelopment, the National Museum in Warsaw’s new Professor Kazimierz Michałowski Faras Gallery will open to the public on October 18, showcasing the finds. This makes the Faras Gallery home to Europe’s only display of Nubian art and cultural artifacts from the Christian period (ca. mid-6th-14th centuries). In a modern design, using multimedia presentations, including 3D film, it will present the most exquisite treasures of a civilization that developed some 1,500 years ago in what is today’s northern Sudan. The opening ceremony will be held under the patronage of UNESCO. It will also be the only place in the world outside Khartoum where paintings of Christian-era Nubian art are on view. The depictions of saints, archangels and Nubian bishops are originally from a cathedral church in Faras (formerly Pachoras), a city that was an important administrative and cultural center of the medieval African kingdom of Nobadia in the Nile Valley.

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ARCHANGEL Sudan, Faras, 9^thc. – 1^st quarter of the 10^thc. AD Mud plaster, tempera; From Polish excavations in Faras, in the National Museum in Warsaw since 1964

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VIRGIN MARY WITH CHILD Sudan, Faras, 9^thc. – 1st half of 10^thc. AD Mud plaster, tempera; h. 146; w. 130.5 From Polish excavations in Faras, in the National Museum in Warsaw since 1964

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BISHOP PETROS WITH SAINT PETER Sudan, Faras, AD 974–997 Mud plaster, tempera; h. 244.5, w. 113 From Polish excavations in Faras, in the National Museum in Warsaw since 1964

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BISHOP MARIANOS WITH VIRGIN MARY WITH CHILD AND CHRIST Sudan, Faras, AD 1005–1036 Mud plaster, tempera; h. 247, w. 155.5 From Polish excavations in Faras, in the National Museum in Warsaw since 1964

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FRAGMENTS OF THE FRIEZE FROM THE APSE OF THE FIRST CATHEDRAL Block decorated with relief representation of birds, altars and columns. Sudan, Faras, 1^st quarter of the 7^th c. AD Sandstone; h. 24, l. 41 From Polish excavations in Faras, in the National Museum in Warsaw since 1964

The priceless works will be presented according to a new exhibition scenario. A room designed to evoke a temple interior will present the wall paintings in an arrangement similar to their original one at the Faras cathedral, with the sound of authentic Coptic liturgical chants heightening the experience for visitors. In a dedicated space, with special consideration for handicapped patrons, multimedia presentations will allow viewers to learn about the history of Christian Nubia, its architecture, the cathedral paintings and their interesting iconography. A digital reconstruction of the cathedral interior in 3D stereoscopy offers the first opportunity to enter a Nubian church in more than 1,000 years. State-of-the-art digital renderings will show the presbytery, the aisles, the chapels and the vestibule, explaining the original location of the paintings as they covered the church’s walls for centuries. The film shows not only works from the National Museum in Warsaw but also those kept at the National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum. The exhibition will be accompanied by presentations of archaeological films and archival photographs from the 1960s excavations.

“Our goal was to recreate, using simple and, in a way, timeless architectural solutions, the mood of the historical sacral interior of an early Christian temple. We were also keen to avoid literal references to the architecture of the Faras cathedral,” said Mirosław Orzechowski and Grzegorz Rytel, architects and authors of the new exhibition design.

So extensive a redevelopment would not have been possible without unprecedented support from a private individual – the Donor of the New Faras Gallery.

Just as with temporary exhibitions, the opening of the new Faras Gallery will be accompanied by an extensive program of educational events: Thursday evening meetings, family workshops, film screenings. Renowned archaeologists, lecturers, conservators and researchers will speak about the successes of Polish archaeology.

The Opening of the Faras Gallery is under UNESCO’s honorary patronage.

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The Nubian Campaign has become a strong symbol of UNESCO’s successful efforts to mobilize joint, high-profile international action for the protection of humanity’s common heritage. This Campaign led to the adoption of UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention in 1972 (Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO).

Exhibition content concept: Bożena Mierzejewska, Collection of Ancient and Eastern Christian Art

Exhibition design: Mirosław Orzechowski, Grzegorz Rytel

Curator of Collection of Ancient and Eastern Christian Art: Alfred Twardecki

News source: Adapted and edited from a National Museum in Warsaw press release

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Brain Evolution Study Yields Surprising Finds

Posted on October 2, 2014 by No Author -

A new study published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on October 2 may help to rewrite the story of ape and human brain evolution. While the neocortex of the brain has been called “the crowning achievement of evolution and the biological substrate of human mental prowess,” newly reported evolutionary rate comparisons show that the cerebellum expanded up to six times faster than anticipated throughout the evolution of apes, including humans.

The findings* suggest that technical intelligence was likely at least as important as social intelligence in human cognitive evolution, the researchers say.

“Our results highlight a previously unappreciated role of the cerebellum in ape and human brain evolution that has the potential to refocus researchers’ thinking about how and why the brains in these species have become distinct and to shift attention away from an almost exclusive focus on the neocortex as the seat of our humanity,” says Robert Barton of Durham University in the United Kingdom.

The cerebellum had been seen primarily as a brain region involved in movement control, adds Chris Venditti of the University of Reading. But more recent evidence has begun to suggest that the cerebellum has a broader range of functions. The cerebellum also contains an intriguingly large number of densely packed neurons.

“In humans, the cerebellum contains about 70 billion neurons—four times more than in the neocortex,” Barton says. “Nobody really knows what all these neurons are for, but they must be doing something important.”

The neocortex had gotten most of the attention in part because it is such a large structure to begin with. As a result, in looking at variation in the size of various brain regions, the neocortex appeared to show the most expansion. But much of that increase in size could be explained away by the size of the animal as a whole. Sperm whales have a neocortex that is proportionally larger than that of humans, for example.

By using a comparative method that controlled for those differences in the way the two brain structures correlate, Barton and Venditti uncovered a striking pattern: both nonhuman apes and humans depart from the otherwise tight correlation in size between the cerebellum and neocortex found across other primates due to relatively rapid evolutionary expansion of the cerebellum.

Barton and Venditti say that the cerebellum seems to be particularly involved in the temporal organization of complex behavioral sequences, such as those involved in making and using tools, for instance. Interestingly, evidence is now emerging for a critical role of the cerebellum in language, too.

While plenty of work remains, the new study establishes the cerebellum as “a new frontier for investigations into the neural basis of advanced cognitive abilities,” the researchers say.

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*Current Biology Barton et al.: “Rapid evolution of the cerebellum in humans and other great apes.” http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)01069-0

Source: Edited and adapted from a Cell Press news release, Unexpectedly speedy expansion of human, ape cerebellum

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Penn Museum’s Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials Launches in Fall 2014

Posted on September 30, 2014 by No Author -

PHILADELPHIA, PA 2014—This fall, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, in conjunction with Penn Arts and Sciences, launches the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM), housed in a newly renovated suite of conservation and teaching laboratories in the Museum’s West Wing. The new Center will offer the facilities, materials, equipment, and expert personnel to teach and mentor undergraduate and graduate students in a range of scientific techniques crucial to archaeologists and other scholars as they seek to interpret the past. Study will be arranged around eight disciplines: ceramics, digital archaeology, archaeobotany, archaeozoology, human skeletal analysis, lithics, archaeometallurgy, and conservation.

“With the teaching of materials examination and analysis—as well as digital archaeology—added to our existing capacity for teaching with collections, extensive and varied fieldwork opportunities, a renowned program in historic preservation, and established archaeological coursework across several departments and programs, CAAM sets Penn and its Museum apart as a leading teaching center for archaeology throughout the world,” said Julian Siggers, Penn Museum Williams Director. “The new Center will bring together the laboratories, equipment, and teaching personnel who will enable exciting learning and discovery to take place at all levels, from introductory courses to Ph.D. theses.”

“The Museum is one of Penn’s unique assets, and its research agenda and collections integrate powerfully with the research and teaching mission of the School,” said Arts and Sciences Dean Steven J. Fluharty. “This Center will create incredible new opportunities for our undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty and advance Penn’s reputation further in an area where we have long excelled.”

New Facilities Made Possible by Visionary Support

The Center is housed in a suite of new laboratories and teaching spaces on the first floor of the Penn Museum’s West Wing, renovated this summer in the final phase of an expansive, $18-million project initiated in 2010. The full project has included renovation of the West Wing’s five public galleries, HVAC installation, and the restoration of the Widener Lecture Room (which can accommodate up to 140 students for lectures or classes in conjunction with lab-based instruction, and also can be used for a wide range of public events).

A Ceramics lab, completed in 2011, provides a research, teaching and mentoring space that already has been put to use by ceramics expert Dr. Marie-Claude Boileau. The newly renovated teaching spaces include a general-purpose teaching and research lab with a fume hood; a lab designed for the teaching of Human Skeletal Analysis and other specialties, a general-purpose wet lab, and a larger classroom. The adjacent Kowalski Digital Media Center contains a Digitization Lab which will be adapted to house Digital Archaeology courses as CAAM brings its full course roster online over the next several years.

The West Wing renovation has also provided state-of-the-art work spaces for Penn Museum’s Conservation Department, which now has a large new laboratory complemented by specialist rooms for x-ray and photography, and a seminar room/library—facilities that will greatly enhance the Department’s ability to care for the nearly one million objects in the Museum’s Collection. The Department has played a leading role in conservation training, having hosted more than 50 interns and fellows since 1971, and conservation courses will be offered as part of the CAAM curriculum.

The newly renovated laboratories, teaching spaces, and amenities are housed in a space of about 8,000 square feet.

Renovation of the Conservation and Teaching Laboratories, which enabled CAAM to go from vision to reality, was made possible by a host of generous donors with a deep commitment to the future of archaeological research. Lead supporters were A. Bruce and Margaret Mainwaring, Charles K. Williams, II, Daniel G. Kamin, Frederick J. Manning, Carrie and Ken Cox, Joseph and Bonnie Lundy, Bayard and Frances Storey, and two anonymous donors.

Teaching and Learning Program

Steve Tinney, Museum Deputy Director, Associate Curator-in-Charge, Babylonian Section, and Clark Research Associate Professor of Assyriology in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, is the new Director of CAAM. Guided by a Faculty Steering Committee, CAAM is the major new initiative in the Museum’s Teaching and Learning Program.

Through the Teaching and Learning Program, the Museum offers hands-on collections access to students and faculty for a wide range of research activities in addition to the materials analysis that will be offered by CAAM. Examples of courses enhanced by the study of objects in the Museum’s Collections Study Room last spring included Age of the Samurai; Artists, Exhibitions, and Museums; and Images in Conflict: A Visual History of Violence. Since its opening in 2012, the Collections Study Room has hosted more than 2,200 Penn students and 56 faculty from 17 departments, providing hands-on, object based learning experiences with the Museum’s international Collection.

A Penn Faculty Steering Committee drawn from several departments in Arts and Sciences and from the School of Design guided the selection of specialties around which CAAM will be structured. In addition to courses, independent study and research mentoring will be offered from introductory to advanced levels, enabling both undergraduate and graduate students to develop from their first experiences with laboratory-based analysis into independent researchers. CAAM teaching specialists will be available to make contributions to a wide array of courses in a range of departments, and will support the research mission and activities of the Museum.

Penn Freshmen who selected to participate in a new seminar course, “Food and Fire: Archaeology in the Laboratory,” will be among the first to explore and learn in the new Center. Taught by Mainwaring Teaching Specialist Dr. Kate Moore, an archaeozoology expert experienced both in the laboratory and in the field, the course will make extensive use of the Museum’s collections and facilities, introducing students to a range of analytical techniques practiced in CAAM. This introductory course will prepare students to continue to second-tier courses in Organic and Inorganic Analysis, and then to intensive laboratory courses in the eight CAAM specialties.

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Students use microscopes with guidance from Dr. Marie-Claude Boileau in the Ceramics lab, part of the new Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials housed in the Penn Museum (Photo: Mark Stehle).

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Conservator Julia Lawson examines objects from the Penn Museum’s collections, in the new Conservation Studio at the Penn Museum (Photo: Penn Museum).

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Dr. Katherine Moore, Mainwaring Teaching Specialist, speaks to students in her “Food and Fire: Archaeology in the Laboratory” seminar for freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania. The class is held in the new classroom in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials at the Penn Museum (Photo: Penn Museum).

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A Public Open House

The Museum is offering the public a chance to see the new labs and learn more about the kind of work that will take place in CAAM. On Saturday, October 18, from 1:00 to 4:00 pm, the Museum celebrates International Archaeology Day with a host of activities designed to interest all ages. Guests can sign up for behind-the-scenes tours of the Conservation and Teaching Labs, where conservators, researchers and students will demonstrate equipment and talk about their work. International Archaeology Day also includes an up-closed look at an ancient mummy at an interactive station, short talks on archaeology, a “What in the World” game show, a family craft station, and a kid-friendly obstacle course worthy of Indiana Jones. The afternoon is co-sponsored by the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Archaeology.

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About the Penn Museum

Founded in 1887, the Penn Museum (the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology), located at 3260 South Street in Philadelphia, is one of the world’s great archaeology and anthropology research museums, and the largest university museum in the United States. With nearly one million objects in the collection, the Penn Museum encapsulates and illustrates the human story: who we are and where we came from. A dynamic research institution with many ongoing research projects, the Museum is an engaging place of discovery. The Museum’s mandate of research, teaching, collections stewardship, and public engagement are the four “pillars” of the Museum’s expansive mission: to transform understanding of the human experience.

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Cover Photo: A wide shot of the new Conservation Studio at the Penn Museum (Photo: Penn Museum).

Source: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology press release.

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Social Transmission of Tool Use in Wild Chimpanzees Observed

Posted on September 30, 2014 by No Author -

Evidence of new behaviour being adopted and transmitted socially from one individual to another within a wild chimpanzee community was published on September 30 in the open access journal PLOS Biology. This is the first instance of social learning recorded in the wild.

Scientists from the University of St Andrews, University of Neuchâtel, Anglia Ruskin University, and Université du Quebec studied the spread of two novel tool-use behaviours among the Sonso chimpanzee community living in Uganda’s Budongo Forest. Dr Catherine Hobaiter, Lecturer in Psychology at the University of St Andrews, said: “researchers have been fascinated for decades by the differences in behaviour between chimpanzee communities; some use tools, some don’t, some use different tools for the same job. These behavioural variations have been described as ‘cultural’, which in human terms would mean they spread when one individual learns from another; but in most cases they’re long established and it’s hard to know how they originally spread within a group. We were incredibly lucky to be in the right place at the right time to document the appearance and spread of two novel tool-use behaviours, something that is extraordinarily rare in the wild.”

The researchers investigated the spread of new variations of ‘leaf-sponges’, which are tools dipped in water to drink from, commonly manufactured by the Sonso chimpanzees by folding leaves in their mouth. Different individuals were observed to develop two novel variants: moss-sponging (a sponge made of moss or a mixture of leaves and moss) and leaf-sponge re-use (using a sponge left behind on a previous visit). Neither moss-sponging nor leaf-sponge re-use had been previously observed in Sonso in over twenty years of continuous observation. Chimpanzees are widely considered to be the most ‘cultural’ of all non-human animals, but most studies examining how behaviour is transmitted are carried out in captive groups. This has long been a focus for critics of arguments for chimpanzee culture, who point out that without similar evidence from the wild it is difficult to argue for an evolutionary connection between human and chimpanzee ‘culture’. Here, for the first time, researchers tracked in real time how a new natural behaviour was passed from individual to individual in a wild community. Dr William Hoppitt, Senior Lecturer in Zoology at Anglia Ruskin University said: “Our results provide strong evidence for social transmission along the chimpanzees’ social network, demonstrating that wild chimpanzees learn novel tool-use from each other and support the claim that some of the observed behavioural diversity in wild chimpanzees should be interpreted as ‘cultural’.”

The analysis began when Nick, a 29-year-old alpha male chimpanzee, made a moss sponge while being watched by Nambi, a dominant adult female. Over the next six days a further seven individuals made and used moss sponges. Six of these had observed the behaviour before adopting it and the seventh was seen to re-use a discarded moss sponge so may have learned about the novel behaviour in this way. The scientists also recorded a 12-year-old sub-adult male retrieve and use a discarded leaf sponge. A further eight individuals adopted the re-use technique, but only four of them observed another individual re-using a sponge first. By using a technique called network-based diffusion analysis the researchers estimated that each time a ‘naïve’ chimpanzee observed moss-sponging, this individual was 15 times more likely to develop the behaviour. This striking effect contrasted with the re-use behaviour in which social learning played much less of a role.

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This is individual ‘KB’ of the Sonso chimpanzee community of the Budongo Forest in Uganda, using a moss-sponge in November 2011, a behavior she learned by observing her mother. Photo by Catherine Hobaiter

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The study indicates that group-specific behavioural variants in wild chimpanzees can be socially learned, adding to the evidence that this prerequisite for culture originated in a common ancestor of great apes and humans, before the advent of humans. Dr Thibaud Gruber, Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Neuchâtel, said: “This study tells us that chimpanzee culture changes over time, little by little, by building on previous knowledge found within the community. This is probably how our early ancestors’ cultures also changed over time. In this respect, this is a great example of how studying chimpanzee culture can help us model the evolution of human culture. Nevertheless, something must have subsequently happened in our evolution that caused a qualitative shift in what we could transmit, rendering our culture much more complex than anything found in wild apes. Understanding this qualitative jump in our evolutionary history is what we need to investigate now.”

Individual KZ (right of the screen) picks a leaf-sponge from the ground while his mother KW is extracting water from the waterhole. He then chews the used LS before leaf-sponging himself at the waterhole (video by Catherine Hobaiter).

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Source: Edited from a press release of PLOS Biology. All works published in PLOS Biology are open access, which means that everything is immediately and freely available. See the published article* for details at http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001960

* Hobaiter C, Poisot T, Zuberbühler K, Hoppitt W, Gruber T (2014) Social Network Analysis Shows Direct Evidence for Social Transmission of Tool Use in Wild Chimpanzees. PLoS Biol 12(9): e1001960. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001960

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Prehistoric Stone Tools Evolved Independently Within Local Populations, Say Researchers

Posted on September 25, 2014 by No Author -

It wasn’t exclusively the arrival of new people from Africa with new technology that changed the stone tool repertoire of early humans in Eurasia a few hundred thousand years ago—it was local populations in different places and times gradually and independently wising up to a better industry on their own.

So suggests Daniel Adler, associate professor of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut, and colleagues based on a recently completed study in which the researchers examined thousands of stone artifacts recovered from Nor Geghi 1, an Armenian Southern Caucasus archaeological site that features preserved lava flows and artifact-bearing sediments dated to between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago. The artifacts, dated at 325,000 – 335,000 years old, were a mix of two distinct stone tool technology traditions—bifacial tools, such as hand axes, which were common among early human populations during the Lower Paleolithic, and Levallois, a stone tool production method typically attributed to the Middle Stone Age in Africa and the Middle Paleolithic in Eurasia. The researchers argue that the coexistence of two technologies at Nor Geghi 1 provides the first clear evidence that local populations developed Levallois technology out of existing biface technology.

“The combination of these different technologies in one place suggests to us that, about 325,000 years ago, people at the site were innovative,” says Adler.

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The discovery of Nor Geghi 1 (NG1), July 2008, with Basalt 1 (top) and stratigraphic Units 1–5. N. Researchers Wales and P. Glauberman are pictured. Credit: Daniel S. Adler

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Representative stratigraphic section of Nor Geghi 1 (NG1), with Basalt 1 (top) and Units 1–5, following the 2009 field season. Credit: Daniel S. Adler

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The paper documenting the research, published in the 26 September 2014 issue of Science, presents the argument that biface and Levallois technology, while distinct, share a common evolutionary line. In biface technology, a stone is shaped through the removal of flakes from two opposite surfaces of the stone to produce a tool such as a hand axe. The detached flakes are discarded as waste products. In Levallois technology, the stone is shaped through the removal of flakes to produce a central convex surface tool, or core. The flakes are produced in predetermined sizes and shapes and used as tools. Archaeologists have suggested that Levallois technology is optimal in terms of raw material. The flakes are relatively small and easy to carry, useful for the highly mobile hunter-gatherers of the time. It has been interpreted as an advancement or innovative improvement on the biface technology.

Based on comparisons of archaeological data from sites in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, the study authors suggest that this change was gradual and intermittent, and that it occurred independently within different human populations who shared a common technological ancestry. In other words Levallois technology evolved out of pre-existing biface technology in different places at different times.

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Technological variability at Nor Geghi 1 (NG1). A) Biface with two biface resharpening/thinning flakes. B–C) Levallois cores with Levallois flakes. D) Blade core with blade. A) The biface is the desired product, with the flakes detached during shaping and resharpening treated as waste. B–D) The flakes and blades are the desired products and were used in an unmodified state or retouched into a variety of tool types. Credit: Daniel S. Adler

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Technological evolution and variability at Nor Geghi 1 (NG1). A) bifaces, B) Levallois cores. Credit: Daniel S. Adler

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Their conclusion challenges the view that technological change resulted from population change (the introduction of or replacement of an older population by a new population) during this period. “If I were to take all the artifacts from the site and show them to an archaeologist, they would immediately begin to categorize them into chronologically distinct groups,” Adler says. However, he suggests that the artifacts found at Nor Geghi 1 actually reflect the technological flexibility and variability of a single population, speaking to the antiquity of the human capacity for innovation.

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Nor Geghi 1 (NG1) at the close of the 2009 field season. Credit: Daniel S. Adler

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This study is the first to present data from Nor Geghi 1, and the research conducted at the site is a collaboration between the University of Connecticut, Yerevan State University, and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Yerevan. Intellectual contributions to this research were made by and international team of collaborators from Armenia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, Holland, Germany, Ireland, and the United States. Funding for this research was provided by the University of Connecticut (the Norian Armenian Programs Committee, the College of Liberal Arts and Science, the Office of Global Affairs, Study Abroad, and the CLAS Book Committee), the UK Natural Environment Research Council, the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, the Irish Research Council, and the University of Winchester, UK.

Source: Written with adapted and edited sections included from a University of Connecticut press release, Stone Age site challenges old archaeological assumptions about human technology

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Study shows early modern human settlement in Central Europe over 43,000 years ago

Posted on September 22, 2014 by No Author -

Early modern humans inhabited the region of what is today known as Austria around 43,500 years ago, living in an environment that was cold and steppe-like, according to a recent study.

Philip Nigst and colleagues of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and other institutions analyzed stone tools and their context after a re-excavation of the famous Willendorf site in Austria, the site best known for the discovery in 1908 of the Venus of Willendorf figurine. Between 2006 and 2011 archaeologists uncovered an assemblage of 32 lithic artifacts and 23 faunal remains. The authors identified the tools as belonging to the Aurignacian culture, generally accepted as associated with modern humans. The researchers determined this through systematic morphological and technological analysis. They assign the artifacts to a very early archaeological horizon of modern human occupation.

“By using stratigraphic, paleoenvironmental, and chronological data, AH 3 [the archaeological horizon assigned to this assemblage] is ascribed to the onset of Greenland Interstadial 11, around 43,500 cal B.P., and thus is older than any other Aurignacian assemblage,” wrote the study authors. “Most importantly,” the study authors continued, “for the first time to our knowledge, we have a high-resolution environmental context for an Early Aurignacian in Central Europe, demonstrating an early appearance of behaviorally modern humans in a medium-cold steppe-type environment with some boreal trees along valleys around 43,500 cal B.P.”*

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Archaeologist Philip R. Nigst and geologist Paul Haesaerts in a test trench at Willendorf II. Credit: Image courtesy of The Willendorf Project, Philip R. Nigst and Bence Viola.

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Excavations at Willendorf II. Credit: Image courtesy of The Willendorf Project, Philip R. Nigst and Bence Viola

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Section at Willendorf II showing the succession of brown paleosols (medium-cold steppe environment) and yellow loess (cold periglacial steppe to deep frost environment). Holes in the section are sample holes. Credit: Image courtesy of The Willendorf Project, Philip R. Nigst and Bence Viola.

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The age of the artifacts suggests that modern humans may have coexisted with Neanderthals in Europe for several thousand years, and the location of the assemblage in what was a cold and steppe-like environment over 43,000 years ago also suggests that early modern human settlers, who may have come from the warmer climate of southern Europe, were well-adapted to a variety of climates, according to the authors.

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*Article #14-12201: “Early modern human settlement of Europe north of the Alps occurred 43,500 years ago in a cold steppe-type environment,” by Philip R. Nigst et al.

Source: Adapted and edited from the abtract and excerpts of the in-press full document versions of the article*, to be published in the Journal of Human Evolution.

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New Large Stone Prehistoric Cutting Tools Found in China

Posted on September 20, 2014 by No Author -

A team of scientists have uncovered large stone cutting tools (LCTs) in the Danjiangkou Reservoir Region (DRR) of central China.

The tool assemblage, discovered and analyzed by Kathleen Kuman of the University of the Witwatersrand and colleagues Chaorong Li of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Hao Li of the University of the Witwatersrand, were excavated at a site on the southeastern edge of the Qinling Mountains. The tools were preserved in three terraces of the Han and Dan rivers in Hubei and Henan Provinces, with a date as early as 800,000 years ago determined in one terrace and Middle Pleistocene and possibly Late Pleistocene in the other terraces.

“Regional environments during the Middle Pleistocene were relatively warm, humid and stable,” summarize the authors in the report abstract. “Despite the poor quality of raw materials (predominantly quartz phyllite and trachyte for the LCTs), good examples of both handaxes and cleavers are present, plus two types of picks.”*

Generally, the tools exhibit technological and morphological elements similar to that of Acheulean LCTs, say the study authors, “with some differences that are mainly attributed to raw material properties, subsistence ecology, and ‘cultural drift.’”*

The Acheulean is an industry of prehistoric stone tool manufacture commonly associated with early humans that lived during the Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of West Asia, South Asia, and Europe. The early human species known as Homo erectus is most often associated with this industry, a technological tradition that is best known for the large hand-axes found at archaeological sites across the same geographic spectrum.

Handaxe-bearing sites in China have been found in a number of alluvial basins, the best known being Dingcun, Bose and Luonan. “Here we document the Danjiangkou Reservoir Region (DRR) as another major area for large cutting tools (LCTs),” report the authors in the report abstract.*

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*Large cutting tools in the Danjiangkou Reservoir Region, central China, Kathleen Kuman^{a, b, ,}, Chaorong Li^{c, ,}, Hao Li^a,, Journal of Human Evolution

Source: Adapted and edited from the abstract of the full study report in-press to be published in final at the Journal of Human Evolution.

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New branch added to European family tree

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Stephanie Dutchen, Harvard Medical School Press Release -

The setting: Europe, about 7,500 years ago.

Agriculture was sweeping in from the Near East, bringing early farmers into contact with hunter-gatherers who had already been living in Europe for tens of thousands of years.

Genetic and archaeological research in the last 10 years has revealed that almost all present-day Europeans descend from the mixing of these two ancient populations. But it turns out that’s not the full story.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Tübingen in Germany have now documented a genetic contribution from a third ancestor: Ancient North Eurasians. This group appears to have contributed DNA to present-day Europeans as well as to the people who travelled across the Bering Strait into the Americas more than 15,000 years ago.

“Prior to this paper, the models we had for European ancestry were two-way mixtures. We show that there are three groups,” said David Reich, professor of genetics at HMS and co-senior author of the study.

“This also explains the recently discovered genetic connection between Europeans and Native Americans,” Reich added. “The same Ancient North Eurasian group contributed to both of them.”

The research team also discovered that ancient Near Eastern farmers and their European descendants can trace much of their ancestry to a previously unknown, even older lineage called the Basal Eurasians.

The study is published Sept. 18 in Nature.

Peering into the past

To probe the ongoing mystery of Europeans’ heritage and their relationships to the rest of the world, the international research team—including co-senior author Johannes Krause, professor of archaeo- and paleogenetics at the University of Tübingen and co-director of the new Max Planck Institute for History and the Sciences in Jena, Germany—collected and sequenced the DNA of more than 2,300 present-day people from around the world and of nine ancient humans from Sweden, Luxembourg and Germany.

The ancient bones came from eight hunter-gatherers who lived about 8,000 years ago, before the arrival of farming, and one farmer from about 7,000 years ago.

The researchers also incorporated into their study genetic sequences previously gathered from ancient humans of the same time period, including early farmers such as Ötzi “the Iceman.”

“There was a sharp genetic transition between the hunter-gatherers and the farmers, reflecting a major movement of new people into Europe from the Near East,” said Reich.

Ancient North Eurasian DNA wasn’t found in either the hunter-gatherers or the early farmers, suggesting the Ancient North Eurasians arrived in the area later, he said.

“Nearly all Europeans have ancestry from all three ancestral groups,” said Iosif Lazaridis, a research fellow in genetics in Reich’s lab and first author of the paper. “Differences between them are due to the relative proportions of ancestry. Northern Europeans have more hunter-gatherer ancestry—up to about 50 percent in Lithuanians—and Southern Europeans have more farmer ancestry.”

Lazaridis added, “The Ancient North Eurasian ancestry is proportionally the smallest component everywhere in Europe, never more than 20 percent, but we find it in nearly every European group we’ve studied and also in populations from the Caucasus and Near East. A profound transformation must have taken place in West Eurasia” after farming arrived.

When this research was conducted, Ancient North Eurasians were a “ghost population”—an ancient group known only through the traces it left in the DNA of present-day people. Then, in January, a separate group of archaeologists found the physical remains of two Ancient North Eurasians in Siberia. Now, said Reich, “We can study how they’re related to other populations.”

Room for more

The team was able to go only so far in its analysis because of the limited number of ancient DNA samples. Reich thinks there could easily be more than three ancient groups who contributed to today’s European genetic profile.

He and his colleagues found that the three-way model doesn’t tell the whole story for certain regions of Europe. Mediterranean groups such as the Maltese, as well as Ashkenazi Jews, had more Near East ancestry than anticipated, while far northeastern Europeans such as Finns and the Saami, as well as some northern Russians, had more East Asian ancestry in the mix.

The most surprising part of the project for Reich, however, was the discovery of the Basal Eurasians.

“This deep lineage of non-African ancestry branched off before all the other non-Africans branched off from one another,” he said. “Before Australian Aborigines and New Guineans and South Indians and Native Americans and other indigenous hunter-gatherers split, they split from Basal Eurasians. This reconciled some contradictory pieces of information for us.”

Next, the team wants to figure out when the Ancient North Eurasians arrived in Europe and to find ancient DNA from the Basal Eurasians.

“We are only starting to understand the complex genetic relationship of our ancestors,” said co-author Krause. “Only more genetic data from ancient human remains will allow us to disentangle our prehistoric past.”

“There are important open questions about how the present-day people of the world got to where they are,” said Reich, who is a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator. “The traditional way geneticists study this is by analyzing present-day people, but this is very hard because present-day people reflect many layers of mixture and migration.

“Ancient DNA sequencing is a powerful technology that allows you to go back to the places and periods where important demographic events occurred,” he said. “It’s a great new opportunity to learn about human history.”

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This project was supported in part by the National Cancer Institute (HHSN26120080001E and NIH/NCI Intramural Research Program), National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM100233 and GM40282), National Human Genome Research Institute (HG004120 and HG002385), an NIH Pioneer Award (8DP1ES022577-04), National Science Foundation (HOMINID awards BCS-1032255 and BCS-0827436 and grant OCI-1053575), Howard Hughes Medical Institute, German Research Foundation (DFG) (KR 4015/1-1), Carl-Zeiss Foundation, Baden Württemberg Foundation and the Max Planck Society.

Source: News release of the Harvard Medical School written by Stephanie Dutchen.

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Human faces evolved to look individually unique, says study

Posted on September 16, 2014 by No Author -

The amazing variety of human faces – far greater than that of most other animals – is the result of evolutionary pressure to make each of us unique and easily recognizable, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, scientists.

Our highly visual social interactions are almost certainly the driver of this evolutionary trend, said behavioral ecologist Michael J. Sheehan, a postdoctoral fellow in UC Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Many animals use smell or vocalization to identify individuals, making distinctive facial features unimportant, especially for animals that roam after dark, he said. But humans are different.

“Humans are phenomenally good at recognizing faces; there is a part of the brain specialized for that,” Sheehan said. “Our study now shows that humans have been selected to be unique and easily recognizable. It is clearly beneficial for me to recognize others, but also beneficial for me to be recognizable. Otherwise, we would all look more similar.”

“The idea that social interaction may have facilitated or led to selection for us to be individually recognizable implies that human social structure has driven the evolution of how we look,” said coauthor Michael Nachman, a population geneticist, professor of integrative biology and director of the UC Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

The study will appear Sept. 16 in the online journal Nature Communications.

In the study, Sheehan said, “we asked, ‘Are traits such as distance between the eyes or width of the nose variable just by chance, or has there been evolutionary selection to be more variable than they would be otherwise; more distinctive and more unique?'”

As predicted, the researchers found that facial traits are much more variable than other bodily traits, such as the length of the hand, and that facial traits are independent of other facial traits, unlike most body measures. People with longer arms, for example, typically have longer legs, while people with wider noses or widely spaced eyes don’t have longer noses. Both findings suggest that facial variation has been enhanced through evolution.

Finally, they compared the genomes of people from around the world and found more genetic variation in the genomic regions that control facial characteristics than in other areas of the genome, a sign that variation is evolutionarily advantageous.

“All three predictions were met: facial traits are more variable and less correlated than other traits, and the genes that underlie them show higher levels of variation,” Nachman said. “Lots of regions of the genome contribute to facial features, so you would expect the genetic variation to be subtle, and it is. But it is consistent and statistically significant.”

Using Army data

Sheehan was able to assess human facial variability thanks to a U.S. Army database of body measurements compiled from male and female personnel in 1988. The Army Anthropometric Survey (ANSUR) data are used to design and size everything from uniforms and protective clothing to vehicles and workstations.

A statistical comparison of facial traits of European Americans and African Americans – forehead-chin distance, ear height, nose width and distance between pupils, for example – with other body traits – forearm length, height at waist, etc. – showed that facial traits are, on average, more varied than the others. The most variable traits are situated within the triangle of the eyes, mouth and nose.

Sheehan and Nachman also had access to data collected by the 1000 Genome project, which has sequenced more than 1,000 human genomes since 2008 and catalogued nearly 40 million genetic variations among humans worldwide. Looking at regions of the human genome that have been identified as determining the shape of the face, they found a much higher number of variants than for traits, such as height, not involving the face.

Prehistoric origins

“Genetic variation tends to be weeded out by natural selection in the case of traits that are essential to survival,” Nachman said. “Here it is the opposite; selection is maintaining variation. All of this is consistent with the idea that there has been selection for variation to facilitate recognition of individuals.”

They also compared the human genomes with recently sequenced genomes of Neanderthals and Denisovans and found similar genetic variation, which indicates that the facial variation in modern humans must have originated prior to the split between these different lineages.

“Clearly, we recognize people by many traits – for example their height or their gait – but our findings argue that the face is the predominant way we recognize people,” Sheehan said.

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Sheehan’s work was supported by a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship.

Source: Edited from a press release of the University of California, Berkeley

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Research Affirms Evidence of a Key Alcoholic Beverage in Ancient Mexico

Posted on September 15, 2014 by No Author -

Residue recovered from pottery vessels suggests that the residents of Teotihuacan, Mexico, one of the largest urban centers of prehistory, made an alcoholic beverage from agave, according to a study. In addition to celebratory and social uses, alcoholic beverages likely provided ancient peoples with an important source of essential nutrients, potable water, and insurance against failed crops. Although direct evidence was lacking, researchers had theorized that the liquor of choice in Teotihuacan was pulque, an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of several species of agave plants, the consumption of which is depicted in ancient mural paintings.

Using a biomarker approach to detect residues of Zymomonas mobilis, the ethanol-producing bacterium that gives pulque its punch, Richard Evershed of the University of Bristol and a team of colleagues from other universities have tested several hundred pottery vessel fragments from Teotihuacan (150 B.C. to 650 A.D.) and identified the characteristic signature on 14 sherds. The findings, according to the authors, represent the earliest direct chemical evidence of pulque production in Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica.

“These findings provide compelling evidence for the use of ceramic vessels to contain pulque in the locality of La Ventilla around A.D. 200–550, at the height of Teotihuacan’s growth and power………pulque was stored in distinctive amphorae vessels sealed with pine resin, as well as in other, less specialized vessels,” report Evershed, et al. “Direct evidence of pulque production provides new insights into how the nutritional requirements of Teotihuacanos were sustained in a region in which the diet was largely based on plants and crop failures, due to drought and frost damage, which resulted in frequent shortfalls in staples.”………*

In addition, the authors propose that the study’s biomarker approach can be extended to identify the presence of other common bacterially fermented alcoholic beverages, including palm wine, beer, and cider.

The research report is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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*Article #14-08339: “Pulque production from fermented agave sap as a dietary supplement in Prehispanic Mesoamerica,” by Marisol Correa−Ascencio, Ian G. Robertson, Oralia Cabrera−Cortés, Rubén Cabrera−Castro, and Richard P. Evershed.

Source: Adapted and edited from a PNAS press release.

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Kingdom of Kush Iron Industry Works Discovered

Posted on September 15, 2014 by No Author -

New techniques developed at the University of Brighton to help archaeologists ‘see’ underground are starting to unlock the industrial secrets of an ancient civilisation.

The UCL Qatar research, investigating the iron industries of the Kingdom of Kush in Sudan, is attempting to identify 2000-year-old iron production workshops.

Working with colleagues from UCL Qatar, Dr Chris Carey, University of Brighton Senior Lecturer, has applied novel methods that have enabled archaeologists to map structures and deposits deep underground.

These underground maps have been used to uncover an iron production workshop complete with furnaces that were part of the economic engine room of the kingdom, which ruled northern Sudan and at certain times parts of Egypt between the 9^th century BC and the 4^th century AD. These workshops would have supplied the Kushites with iron tools and weapons and personal adornments.

The discoveries produced a Eureka moment for lead researcher Dr Jane Humphris (UCL Qatar). “Chris was able to tell us where to dig and how deep to dig and we soon found what we were looking for”.

“We had been searching for two years at other sites for workshops, without success, but this time was different. We uncovered a workshop with two furnace structures – only the third workshop of its kind ever to be found at the Royal City of Meroe.

“It was a very, very exciting moment. I texted Chris in Brighton immediately with the news.”

Dr Carey’s utilised gradiometry – a method that detects changes in magnetic fields and can pinpoint signs of human activities. Strong magnetic anomalies, for instance, suggest an iron ‘hot spot’, where iron was smelted. In this case the use of an additional method – electrical resistivity equipment which passes electrical current through the ground, allowed the depths of features such as slagheaps and buildings to be identified. Electrical resistance in the soil varies, and is affected by the presence of archaeological features. This second tool plotted the depth and volumes of the slag heaps.

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Dr Carey (third from left) and Dr Humphris. Courtesy University of Brighton

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Dr Carey visited the site to collect the data he needed and after analysing results in his laboratories in Brighton, he was able to send Dr Humphris detailed earth maps. He said: “Putting the two techniques together is a first for archaeo-metallurgy (the study of ancient metal production) and we are very excited by the success – no one has done this before. It is helping provide a holistic understanding of the industrial technologies this civilisation used and their impact on the society of the time.

“Already the results are beyond what we might have hoped for and this is the just the tip of the iceberg – and the University of Brighton is firmly embedded within this exciting project.”

The archaeological site at Meroe recently was declared a World Heritage Site but the researchers are only just beginning to understand the full significance industrial exploitation had on the empire.

Dr Carey said: “The Kingdom of Kush is famed for its pyramids and ancient temples but behind this complex society was an economy based on exploitation of raw resources and we are keen to learn more, including who was smelting the iron and what status they had in society. This economy is known to be archaeologically important but it has, as of yet, been little studied.”

Dr Carey and colleagues are now using laboratories at the University of Brighton’s School of Environment and Technology to analyse geochemical/isotopic samples from the dig to determine if other metals were smelted on the site. He will be spending a considerable amount of this time working on this project over the coming years.

Dr Humphris said Dr Carey’s work was integral to the project which is being assisted by other experts from a number of universities around the world. Dr Humphris said the project was providing educational, employment and training opportunities for local people as well.

For more information on the project go to: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/qatar/research/meroitic-iron-production-sudan

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Source: Adapted and edited from a University of Brighton press release entitled Breaking new ground.

Cover Photo, Top Left: Courtesy University of Brighton

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Mystery Surrounds Skeletons in Mass Grave

Posted on September 12, 2014 by No Author -

Further tests will be conducted on skeletons initially recovered from a centuries-old mass grave in Durham City, in the UK, in 2013.

Initial analysis on the bones of 28 individuals recovered from the site provided some evidence regarding their origins and identity, but was inconclusive.

The tests, coordinated and partly carried out by Durham University’s Department of Archaeology, included examination of the human bones by academic specialists; radiocarbon dating of two individuals and a programme of isotope analysis to ascertain diet.

The University will commission radiocarbon dating of some of the other skeletons, with results expected in the New Year.

Preliminary results show that all of the 28 individuals were male and aged between 13 and over 46. About half were under 20 years of age. No evidence of blunt force or trauma was found on the bones.

The remains of two individuals have been radiocarbon dated and the results point to a date of death sometime within 1440-1630.

Some individuals show evidence of having smoked clay pipes. Tobacco was only introduced into England in the 1570s and became popular by the end of the 16^th Century, so this helps to narrow the date range further, perhaps as tightly as 1610-30.

The isotopes from the bones of two individuals show that marine resources, such as fish and shellfish, did not form a significant part of their diet, suggesting that they did not live by the coast.

Mr Richard Annis, Senior Archaeologist, Archaeological Services Durham University, said: “A possible association has been suggested between these remains and the Scots prisoners who died in Durham Cathedral and Castle following the battle of Dunbar in September 1650″. But, he continued, “the radiocarbon dates obtained so far are incompatible with this hypothesis.”

“However, in view of the exceptional interest in the burial and the small number of samples so far analysed, the University has now commissioned radiocarbon dating of further individuals. The new results are expected to be available in the New Year and will be made available as soon as possible.”

The Battle of Dunbar took place during the Civil War in 1650 when the English defeated a newly recruited and unprepared Scottish Army. Captured prisoners were marched south with significant numbers ending up imprisoned in Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle.

At this time and throughout the Commonwealth, Durham Cathedral was empty and abandoned, its Dean and Chapter dissolved and its worship suppressed by order of Oliver Cromwell.

During the hard winter of 1650-51, many of those incarcerated at Durham died of malnutrition, disease and cold.

The mass grave was discovered in November 2013 on University property at the World Heritage Site in Durham during building work being monitored by Archaeological Services Durham University.

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Source: Edited from a press release issued by Durham University Marketing and Communications Office.

Cover Photo, Top Left: Skull excavated from mass grave. Courtesy Durham University Department of Archaeology

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Archives: Articles

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Prehistoric Stone Tools Evolved Independently Within Local Populations, Say Researchers

Study shows early modern human settlement in Central Europe over 43,000 years ago

New Large Stone Prehistoric Cutting Tools Found in China

New branch added to European family tree

Human faces evolved to look individually unique, says study

Research Affirms Evidence of a Key Alcoholic Beverage in Ancient Mexico

Kingdom of Kush Iron Industry Works Discovered

Mystery Surrounds Skeletons in Mass Grave

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