Is it just pseudoscience, or something that will stand the test of additional research? According to one researcher’s analysis, there was an astronomically-based purpose to the curious yet incredibly precise way the massive stones of the 600-year-old Sacsayhuamán terrace walls were constructed high above and overlooking the ancient Inca capital of Cusco in Peru. (Popular Archaeology)
What can you learn from a single tooth? Quite a lot, actually. University of Toronto archaeologist Susan Pfeiffer and an international team of scholars are recovering DNA as well as chemical isotopes from ancient American Indian teeth to sort out what happened in the northern Iroquoian communities of southern Ontario between the 13th and 16th centuries. (The Columbus Dispatch)
A cool discovery underneath the Poplar Street Bridge where crews are preparing to replace two ramps. A MoDot archaeological dig has uncovered evidence of two homes. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports the log homes were built around 1770, only six years after St. Louis was founded. (KPLR St. Louis)
An inscription on a 3,500-year-old stone block from Egypt may be one of the world’s oldest weather reports — and could provide new evidence about the chronology of events in the ancient Middle East. A new translation of a 40-line inscription on the 6-foot-tall calcite block called the Tempest Stela describes rain, darkness and “the sky being in storm without cessation, louder than the cries of the masses.” (Science Daily)
The Çatalhöyük Research Project, an effort that consists of an international team of archaeologists and other experts from a consortium of universities and research institutions, has announced upcoming conferences to showcase and discuss the latest thinking about the excavation results at the iconic Neolithic and Chalcolithicproto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, in present-day Turkey.
On location near the excavation site, the meetings will take place among two separate but adjoining conference sessions from August 2 through August 4, 2014. The first is part of a Templeton-funded project that is exploring the role of religion and ritual in the origin of settled life. Conference organizers are interested in addressing three foci related to this theme: The first concerning the repetitive building of houses or cult buildings in the same place; the second, the possible cosmological layout of settlements; and the third, the timing of the emergence of a concern with history-making in a place, and its cosmological layout. “At what point in regional sequences do such features emerge and with what does their appearance correlate?”, write the organizers. “Can such correlations be used to suggest the causal processes that produced such features; causal processes such as agricultural intensification, population increase, social competition and so on?” The second conference is part of a Polish National Science Center grant aimed at investigating the upper Late Neolithic strata of the East mound at Çatalhöyük and recognizing the demise of the previously vibrant mega-city. This conference aims to address three intertwined issues: The first concerns the character of changes in other parts of the Near East in the second half of the 7th millennium BCE in relation to the developments at Çatalhöyük in a broader regional context; the second issue comprises social and ideological changes taking place at the end of the Neolithic and the beginning of the Chalcolithic; and the third concerns the changes in lifeways, subsistence basis, environment exploitation, and the modes of procurement, consumption and distribution of different resources. “Did the Late Neolithic farmers,” added the organizers, “start to exploit a different set of resources originating from previously unexplored areas? Did the end of the 7th millennium BCE involve changes in farming strategies and shifts in the consumption patterns?”
Çatalhöyük has been considered by scholars as a key example of the development of the world’s earliest societies. Initially excavated by James Mellaart in the early 1960s, the site has been widely recognised as one of the first urban centers in the world (at 7400 BCE) and exhibits some of the first wall paintings and mural art. The spectacular art provides a direct window into life 9,000 years ago, and the site has become an internationally important key for our understanding of the origins of agriculture and civilization. The aims of the current international project at Çatalhöyük involve full-scale modern archaeological excavation and conservation, and promotion of the site for visitor access. More recently, archaeological excavation and conservation was begun by an international team beginning in 1993 under the direction of Dr. Ian Hodder of the Çatalhöyük Research Project, Stanford University, under the auspices of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, with a permit from the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and in close collaboration with the University of California at Berkeley, University of London, Istanbul and Selcuk Universities in Turkey, and Poznan University in Poland. The work is currently focusing on extensive excavation of new areas of the site and the recovery, conservation and presentation of its paintings and sculpture. The work is planned to continue over 25 years.
The most recent excavations of 2013 led to a number of remarkable discoveries, including a piece of cloth that was placed within a burial and preserved due to the conflagration of the building. “This cloth was actually wrapped around an infant and was preserved due to its partial carbonization,” wrote the excavation directors in a recent report. “In the same burial, a wooden bowl was preserved, placed on the head of another infant.”* The cloth was analyzed within laboratories on-site, and have been identified as linen made from flax. Scholars suggest that the finely woven material was likely traded from the Levant all the way to central Anatolia. Archaeologists have long known of long-distance trade of obsidian and shells at this time period in the Middle East, but this is the first indication that cloth or textile may have been part of that trade, perhaps exchanged for the obsidian from Cappadocia.
Other discoveries emerged through excavations of additional Neolithic buildings. Wrote excavations director Ian Hodder: “Here we found buildings that indeed did differ very much from earlier buildings (with, for example very thick walls built with large flat bricks) and which had not been burned on abandonment. One of the buildings at this late phase had walls painted with designs not seen before. Normally the paintings at Çatalhöyük are made using dark paint (red or black mostly) on a white background, but in this case very regular white lines had been painted on a darker background. This painting continued along at least the east and north walls of the main room: it must have been a very bright and vibrant space.”*
More information about the Çatalhöyük Research Project and the conferences can be obtained at their website.
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Charred grains of barley, millet and wheat deposited nearly 5,000 years ago at campsites in the high plains of Kazakhstan show that nomadic sheepherders played a surprisingly important role in the early spread of domesticated crops throughout a mountainous east-west corridor along the historic Silk Road, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
“Our findings indicate that ancient nomadic pastoralists were key players in an east-west network that linked innovations and commodities between present-day China and southwest Asia,” said study co-author Michael Frachetti, PhD, an associate professor of archaeology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University and principal investigator on the research project.
Findings are based on archaeobotanical data collected from four Bronze Age pastoralist campsites in Central Eurasian steppe/mountains: Tasbas and Begash in the highlands of Kazakhstan and Ojakly and Site 1211/1219 in Turkmenistan.
Frachetti and a team of WUSTL researchers led the on-site excavations, working closely with archaeologists based in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Italy. Spengler conducted the paleoethnobotany laboratory work at WUSTL, under the directorship of Gayle J. Fritz, PhD, professor of archaeology and expert in human-plant relationships.
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A photo of the long-term settlement stratigraphy at the site of Tasbas. Mudbrick/clay oven (visible on right lower portion) contained earliest evidence for grain farming.Credit: Paula Doumani /Washington University in St. Louis (2011
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A view of the Byan Zhurek valley and setting near Tasbas.Credit: Michael Frachetti/Washington University in St. Louis (2011)
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Frachetti said that ancient wheat and broomcorn millet, recovered from the sites “show that prehistoric herders in Central Eurasia had incorporated both regional crops into their economy and rituals nearly 5,000 years ago, pushing back the chronology of interaction along the territory of the ‘Silk Road’ more than 2,000 years.”
While these crops have been known to exist much earlier in ancient China and Southwest Asia, finding them intermingled in the Bronze Age burials and households of nomadic pastoralists provides some of the earliest concrete signs for east-west interaction in the vast expanse of Eurasian mountains and the first botanical evidence for farming among Bronze Age nomads.
Bread wheat, cultivated at least 6,000 years ago in Southwest Asia, was absent in China before 2500 B.C. while broomcorn millet, domesticated 8,000 years ago in China, is missing in southwest Asia before 2000 B.C. This study documents that ancient grains from eastern China and southwest Asia were present in Kazakhstan in the center of the continent by 2700-2500 B.C. (nearly 5,000 years ago).
“This study starts to rewrite the model for economic change across Eurasia,” said first author Robert Spengler, PhD, a paleoethnobotanist and research associate in Arts and Sciences at WUSTL. “It illustrates that nomads had diverse economic systems and were important for reshaping economic spheres more generally.”
“Finding this diverse crop assemblage at Tasbas and Begash illustrates first evidence for the westward spread of East Asian and Southwest Asian crops eastward, and the surprise is that it is nomads who are the agents of change,” Frachetti said.
The study is published April 2nd in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
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Source: Edited from a Washington University press release.
Washington University co-authors include three anthropology graduate students: Paula Doumani, Lynne Rouse and Elissa Bullion. Doumani led the excavations at Tasbas in Kazakhstan while Rouse co-led the excavations at Ojakly in Turkmenistan.
Other co-authors are Barbara Cerasetti, of the Universita`degli Studi di Bologna, Italy, and Alexei Mar’yashev, of the Institute of Archaeology in Kazakhstan.
Funding was provided by National Science Foundation grant nos. 1010678, 0535341, 1132090 and 1036942, as well as Lambda Alpha National Honor Society, the Mary Morris-Stein Foundation, Wenner-Gren grant no. 8157, George F. Dales Foundation and International Research & Exchanges Board IARO.
On the go? Purchase the mobile version of the current issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine here for only $2.99.
And, Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery edition 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.
Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email [email protected] and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com.
Located within the fertile plain of the Jezreel valley in northern Israel, the archaeological site known as Ein el-Jarba has been yielding finds that are beginning to tell a story of a people who lived there more than 6,000 years ago, before the pyramids arose in Egypt and before the ancient Canaanites dominated the region.
Archaeologist Katharina Streit, a PhD student with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has been leading a team of archaeologists, students and volunteers through full-scale excavations at the site to uncover evidence of an Early Chalcolithic (or Copper Age) human settlement.[1] Before implements of bronze were even invented, a community with skills enough to produce distinctive pottery, other ceramic ware, and tools made of obsidian, lived and died in this place.
“Little is known about this long period, which stretches over most of the 6th millennium BCE,” says Streit. “This period suffers an institutional bias, not fully belonging neither in prehistory, nor Biblical archaeology.”*
In a way, one can hardly fault the scholarly establishment for the ‘oversight’. In a region so rich in biblical history, prehistory, place-names and historical headline-grabbing archaeological discoveries, the attention has often been diverted to those things that have captured the public imagination, funding, and the draw of the popular press.
Among her goals with the project, Streit hopes to change that bias.
“It is envisaged that renewed excavations at Ein el-Jarba will provide a better understanding of Kaplan’s exceptional, yet preliminary excavation results, as well as contribute to our understanding of chronology and material culture of the Protohistory of Israel,” Streit ads. It was under J. Kaplan that a one-season excavation at the site was initially conducted in 1966, yielding four phases of Chalcolithic occupation with architectural remains and burials. And although the site was visited and researched to a limited extent since then, comparatively little had been done since the Kaplan excavation.
As a part of her dissertation research, Streit returned twice to the site in the Spring and Summer of 2013 with a small team to begin the first renewed excavations. The results of these initial efforts solidly met her hopes and expectations. Systematic digging turned up an intact Early Bronze Age floor, house architecture remains, a possible silo and complete ceramic vessels and, most important to their research designs, an Early Chalcolithic level “yielding a rich assemblage of finds and several floor levels”.*
Among the many finds were retouched flint tools, sling stones, incised pottery, and numerous blades and fragments of obsidian.
She takes special note of the obsidian artifacts, mainly because of the original source of the material.
“There are no obsidian sources in Israel or in the surrounding areas. The closest potential sources are in Anatolia, so each piece of obsidian we find must have been imported from at least that distance,” says Streit.* This could say something about the culture and capabilities of the people who lived here.
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View of the 2013 excavation at Ein el-Jarba. Wikimedia Commons
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The richest yield, however, consisted of numerous sherds of what is designated as ‘Wadi Rabah’ pottery, a distinctive marker for the “Wadi Rabah culture”. In 1958 Kaplan coined this term as a categorical or chronological descriptor for artifacts he uncovered in the 1960’s at the protohistoric site of Wadi Rabah, located on the southern bank of its namesake tributary of the Yarkon River near the present-day Israeli city of Petah Tiqva in central Israel. Generally dated to the 5th millennium BCE, this cultural phase in Levantine archaeology has yet to be fully defined. It has been variously described as a material culture that falls within the “bridge” period between the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age of the Middle East, or the Chalcolithic (“Copper” Age). Other sites where artifacts attributed to the Wadi Rabah culture have been found in Israel include Munhata, Nahal Zehora, Tel Tsaf, Teluliot Batashi, Jericho, Tell Farah North, and Nahal Yarmut.
But while the small finds for the Early Chalcolithic are significant, very little in the way of domestic structures for this period have yet been found at the site. Of particular interest would be the presence of courtyard houses, as these structures are considered to be the dominant type of dwellings in the prehistoric southern Levant. But “no courtyard house has been found dating to the Early Chalcolithic period so far,” says Streit. “In fact, no complete houseplan is known from the Early Chalcolithic period so far, and consequently little is known about domestic life…….The target of this excavation project is thus to uncover domestic architecture and to document complete houseplans. The remains [previously] excavated by Kaplan suggest that domestic architecture is indeed present at the site and that preservation conditions are favourable.”*
Another of Streit’s goals includes uncovering evidence to clarify the dating of the Early Chalcolithic in the region.
“At Ein el-Jarba,” writes Streit, “Kaplan analyzed one bone (4920 ± 240) and one charcoal sample (5690 ± 140) but was dissatisfied by the results because of their great discrepancy. The renewed excavations intend to achieve a more precise absolute date, contributing to the chronological debate of the Early Chalcolthic. Further, renewed excavations will allow a quantitative analysis, comparing the Ein el-Jarba assemblage to other quantified assemblages” recovered from other sites.*
Streit and her team, consisting of 8 to 10 Israelis and 16 volunteers from other countries, will be returning during the summer of 2014 to continue the excavations. The successful completion of their task in this and future seasons could have an important impact on research in this area of Levantine archaeology.
“The Wadi Rabah period remains ill-defined,” states Streit. “Very little is known about architecture, burial or ritual in the Early Chalcolithic period. This project will provide the chronological frame necessary for future research.”*
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Although the 2014 season is filled, those interested in participating in future seasons may visit the website for more information and application requirements.
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[1]The archaeological work at Ein el-Jarba has been renewed in 2013 on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, directed by Katharina Streit, in cooperation with the Jezreel Valley Regional Project.
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(CORTEZ, Colo.)—March 20, 2014 —The Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, Colo., offers an extraordinary opportunity for teens seeking an exciting summer adventure that also will look great on a college application. Some participants will be able to attend on scholarships that will help cover the costs of tuition, room and board.
Students participating in Crow Canyon’s Middle School Archaeology Camp, High School Archaeology Camp, and High School Field School excavate alongside archaeologists in the field, analyze artifacts in the lab, visit archaeological sites, and discover the rich cultural history of the ancestral Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest. The camps offer a rare opportunity for students at the pre-college level to perform on-site archaeological work.
Archaeology camp students will work at the Dillard site, Crow Canyon’s current excavation site and the focus of the Center’s Basketmaker Communities Project. The site is an ancestral Pueblo community center dating from the Basketmaker III period (A.D. 500–750), a time of rapid population growth and social and technological change. Crow Canyon and the Dillard site will be featured on a PBS Time Team America episode on Aug. 26.
In accordance with Crow Canyon’s human remains policy and current research design, the Center does not seek out human remains as objects of study.
Scholarships are available, including several for local and American Indian students. Scholarship application deadlines are approaching. (Deadlines vary by program). For more information about Crow Canyon’s teen camps and scholarships, including application forms and application deadlines, log on to www.crowcanyon.org/summercamps, contact Greg Harpel at 970-564-4346(direct) or 800-422-8975, ext. 146, or e-mail him at [email protected].
The Crow Canyon Archaeological Center is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to understanding and teaching therich history of the ancestral Pueblo Indians who inhabited the canyons and mesas of the Mesa Verde region more than700 years ago. The Center is located just outside Cortez, Colo., in an area with one of the densest concentrations ofwell-preserved archaeological sites in the world.
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About the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center
The Crow Canyon Archaeological Center is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to understanding and teaching the
rich history of the ancestral Pueblo Indians who inhabited the canyons and mesas of the Mesa Verde region more than
700 years ago. The Center is located just outside Cortez, Colo., in an area with one of the densest concentrations of
On the go? Purchase the mobile version of the current issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine here for only $2.99.
And, Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery edition 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.
Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email [email protected] and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com.
Baltimore, MD — With high-tech ground penetrating radar and old school trowels and shovels, Baltimore Heritage is launching an archeology dig in Patterson Park to discover the remains of Baltimore’s main line of defense against the British land invasion in the War of 1812. A series of tours, talks, and hands-on archeology projects will allow kids and adults to learn about Patterson Park and Baltimore in the War of 1812, and participate in this great urban archeology project.
As Francis Scott Key famously watched the British bomb Ft. McHenry from a boat in Baltimore’s Harbor, thousands of Baltimoreans also were dug in at Patterson Park (then called Hampstead Hill) to fight against British troops who had landed at North Point and were marching to destroy the city by land. Baltimoreans of all walks of life — slaves, aristocrats, recent immigrants, men and women young and old – came together with scant time to prepare and dug a massive defensive works on Hampstead Hill. With funding from the National Park Service’s National Battlefield Protection Program, the Maryland Heritage Area Authority, and PNC Bank, the archeology investigation will look for the remains of this defensive network and anything from 1812 that the Defenders left behind.
Johns W. Hopkins, executive director of Baltimore Heritage, comments: “With 15,000 troops, dozens of cannons, and fortifications that were hurriedly erected with help from seemingly every person in the city, Baltimore’s stand against the British in Patterson Park and at Ft. McHenry was a high mark for the city. This archeology dig will go a long way in rediscovering the efforts of so many to keep Baltimore standing, and we invite the public to come to the park and participate first-hand.”
Schedule of Events
With partners the Friends of Patterson Park, the Creative Alliance, the Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks, and the Baltimore Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation, the dig will include events that are free and open to the public:
March 27, 6:00 to 7:30 pm (27 S. Patterson Park Ave.)
High Tech Archeology Show and Tell
Archeologist Dr. Tim Horsley will discuss ground-penetrating radar, magnetometry and other high-tech techniques that will be used to discover the 1812 fortifications
April 26, 11:00 am to 2:00 pm (Pagoda Hill in Patterson Park)
Family oriented tours and programs about the archeology dig and the War of 1812 in conjunction with the Dia Del Nino events also occurring in the park.
May 3, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm (Pagoda Hill)
In conjunction with the Kinetic Sculpture Race, Baltimore Heritage will offer tours and talks with archeologists and historians about the War of 1812 dig. Find out what they are doing and what they are finding!
May 10, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm (Pagoda Hill)
In conjunction with the Butchers Hill Flea Market, Baltimore Heritage will offer tours and talks with archeologists and historians about the War of 1812 dig. Find out what they are doing and what they are finding!
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And, Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery edition 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.
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Researchers are now uncovering evidence that will shed light on the lifeways of Maya elites, the class of people who lived within that rung of society between the kings and royal households and the commoners of ancient Maya civilization.
For four weeks in July, 2013, a team of archaeologists, students and volunteers under the auspices of the Maya Research Program, based at the University of Texas in Tyler, excavated the remains of what is considered to be an elite residential complex or compound at the site of Xno’ha (named after the nearby Xno’ha Creek) in northwestern Belize. They discovered, in addition to architectural features, a cache of purposefully positioned Late Preclassic (400 BCE – 200 CE) ceramic vessels, and an Early Classic (200 – 600 CE) tomb.
Under the direction of site supervisor Alexander Parmington, excavators focused on a set of structures designated ‘Patio Group 78’. A patio group, as defined by Maya archaeologists, is a complex of rectilinear structures placed on a levelled hill in an L-shape configuration that generally face eastward and are positioned around a central plaza or patio (open space). The Xno’ha Group 78 is described as a series of range structures, which are large, vaulted and multi-roomed. Patio groups are usually associated with individuals and families with elite status.
“The approach undertaken was to first locate the patio surface and baseline of two structures before broader stripping of the associated architecture,” said Parmington. “Not only did the excavations reveal the final phases of the patio’s architecture, a large cache of nine Sierra Red vessels dating typologically to the Late Preclassic period (300 BCE – 250 CE) were recovered below the Patio’s exterior floor. Four of the vessels were stacked in a lip-to-lip configuration with one vessel positioned immediately north and south of the stack. Phytolith analysis of the sediments contained within the vessels determined the presence of sponge spicules – indicating the vessel contained marine sponges.”*The Pollen and phytolith analysis further indicated they contained large amounts of leaves from shrubs and trees, herbaceous monocots, palm fruits, and plant oils that may have been poured into a lower vessel.**
In addition to the cache, an Early Classic tomb was recovered, containing two marine shells and a tubular jade bead.*
Overall, Xno’ha is described as a medium-sized Maya center, composed of a large central plaza that is surrounded by numerous residential building groups. It was first identified in 1990 and then surveyed, mapped, and partially excavated between 2002 and 2004 before the current excavation series were initiated. Excavation results have thus far suggested that the site was occupied from the Late Preclassic to the Terminal Classic period (300 BCE – 925 CE).
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Xno’ha shown within the context of other Maya centers in the region. (Courtesy Mark Wolf)
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Overhead view of portion of excavated elite residential area at Xno’ha. Courtesy Maya Research Program.
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Eye-level view of a portion of the exposed residential area. Courtesy Maya Research Program
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The cache in situ, immediately after excavation. Courtesy Maya Research Program.
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The cache restored to its appearance as originally configured. Courtesy Maya Research Program.
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The site is being studied to help archaeologists gain a clearer picture of elite-elite and elite-commoner interraction, relationships, and Maya societal structure. Toward that end, researchers at Xno’ha Group 78 hope to build a ‘domestic structure database’ through the excavation of elite household groups and compounds within the site’s settlement zone. “The establishment of such a database would provide a basis for a comparative study of behavior between royal elites and between royal elites and non-royal elites and commoners,” says Parmington.**
It is not yet known how or if Xno’ha relates to the larger nearby Maya center of La Milpa. La Milpa is the largest Maya center closest to Xno’ha. It was likely the dominant regional power through the Late Preclassic period (300 BCE – 250 CE). Researchers hope future excavation and research will shed light on any such relationship.
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Popularly known as the site where archaeologists recently excavated an ancient jug containing a silver hoard, it sits near the border between modern day Israel and Lebanon to the north, in an area that brings to mind the political and military tensions that have so often plagued the border areas of these neighboring countries. Even thousands of years ago, this area figured prominently in conflicts and disputes among ancient players.
Today the location is known as Tel Abel Beth Maacah, an archaeological site that has been identified by biblical scholars as the likely location of an ancient city that, at one time, may have had important Aramean connections. It is mentioned a number of times in the biblical account, including the battle related to the revolt against David by Sheba ben Bichri. In the early 19th century BCE it was conquered by Ben-hadad of Damascus, and by the Neo-Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III in 733 BCE. Scholars suggest that it may have been at one time the capital of the Aramean kingdom of Maacah.
The site is historically important for its strategic location, controlling the roads leading north to the Lebanese Beq‘a, northeast to inner and northern Syria and into Mesopotamia, and also west to the Lebanese/ Phoenician coast. But despite this location and the prominence of the imposing mound containing its remains, the site has never been excavated until now. Early surveys were conducted in 1973 by William G. Dever of the University of Arizona, yielding evidence that suggested that the site was occupied from Early Bronze Age (third millennium BCE) up to the time when the city was destroyed by the Neo-Assyrian monarch Tiglath-pileser III in 733-32 BCE, but pottery from the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman-Byzantine, Arabic, and Ottoman periods was also found. A small Arab village occupied the site until 1948, and its remains can still be seen today.
Archaeologists finally returned to the site in May 2012, when a team led by Robert Mullins of Azusa Pacific University near Los Angeles, California and Nava Panitz-Cohen of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem conducted a survey to lay the foundation and select areas for the very first full-scale excavations of the site in 2013.
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Above: This Iron Age I ring flask was recovered along with other finds during the 2012 survey. Photo by Moshe Cohen.
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The 2013 excavations were not disappointing. “We conducted a four-week season in June and July,” reported Mullins and Panitz-Cohen in a recent article. “We focused on two areas – ‘Area F’ on the southern end of the lower mound and ‘Area A’ on the eastern end of the connection between the upper and lower mounds.” What they found was a significant Iron Age I (1200 – 1000 BCE) domestic occupation in Area A, including a plethora of collared-rim jar fragments, and a structure in Area F built of massive stones, which they suggest could be the partial remains of a tower. The date of the structure is not yet known. “But our prize find in Area F,” they continued, “was a small jug containing a silver hoard that sat on a floor abutting the structure. We have tentatively attributed this to very late Late Bronze-early Iron Age I (1300 – 1200 BCE).”* Following meticulous treatment by conservator Mimi Lavi of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the hoard was found to consist of “five complete earrings, three earring fragments, three ingots and one twisted piece that might also have been an earring.”**
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A general view of Area A looking south containing remains of houses from Iron Age I (11th century BCE). Photo by Robert Mullins, Abel Beth Maacah Excavations.
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A general view of excavation activity in Area F. Photo courtesy Abel Beth Maacah Excavations.
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Smashed collared-rim jar in Area F, which dates to Iron Age I (12th-11th centuries BCE). Photo by Robert Mullins, Abel Beth Maacah Excavations.
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The jug containing the hoard in situ in Area F. Photo by Robert Mullins, Abel Beth Maacah Excavations.
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Jug that contained the hoard and close-up of hoard before conservation. Photo by Gabi Laron, Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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The hoard after conservation work, showing complete earrings, earring fragments, and an ingot. These artifacts would be dated to the Late Bronze Age, based on the earring style. Photo by Gabi Laron.
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Going forward, Mullins and Panitz-Cohen emphasize that much more work needs to be done before they can achieve their ultimate objective, which is to help fill in the many gaps of knowledge that still exist about the northern region of Israel during the Bronze and Iron Ages. “Our understanding of this region has been based largely on an important, but limited data set from Dan and Hazor [two other major archaeological sites in northern Israel],” they maintain.*** They point out that other major nearby sites that would shed light on this, such as Damascus in Syria and Tyre in Lebanon, have not been investigated because they are overlayed with modern settlements, or for other reasons.
Returning again in 2014, they hope to uncover more finds that will help them answer their questions and inch closer to re-constructing a picture of the Bronze Age and Iron Age Levant in this region. Excavations are slated to begin in late June. More information about the efforts and how one can participate can be obtained at the project website. (See video below)
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Directors Robert Mullins and Nava Panitz Cohen at the excavation site. Photo courtesy Abel Beth Maacah Excavations.
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*Mullins, Robert and Panitz-Cohen, Nava, Breaking Ground at Tel Abel Beth Maacah – Why Dig at the Gateway to the Arameans, ASOR Blog, 18 March 2014.
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Archaeologists have found the oldest complete example in the world of a human with metastatic cancer in a 3,000 year-old skeleton.
The findings are reported in the academic journal PLOS ONE today (17 March, 2014).
The finding came from a skeleton of a young adult male found by a Durham University PhD student in a tomb in modern Sudan in 2013. Dating back to 1200 BCE, it was estimated to be between 25-35 years old when he died and was found at the archaeological site of Amara West in northern Sudan, situated on the Nile, 750 km downstream of the country’s modern capital, Khartoum. It was buried extended on his back, within a badly deteriorated painted wooden coffin, and provided with a glazed faience amulet as a grave good.
The skeleton was examined by experts at Durham University and the British Museum using radiography and a scanning electron microscope (SEM) which resulted in clear imaging of the lesions on the bones. It showed cancer metastasized on the collar bones, shoulder blades, upper arms, vertebrae, ribs, pelvis and thigh bones. It is the oldest convincing complete example of metastatic cancer in the archaeological record.
Lead author, Michaela Binder, a PhD student in the Department of Archaeology at Durham University, excavated and examined the skeleton. She said: “Our analysis showed that the shape of the small lesions on the bones can only have been caused by a soft tissue cancer even though the exact origin is impossible to determine through the bones alone.”
“Insights gained from archaeological human remains like these can really help us to understand the evolution and history of modern diseases,” she added. “Very little is known about the antiquity, epidemiology and evolution of cancer in past human populations apart from some textual references and a small number of skeletons with signs of cancer.”
The cause of the cancer can only be speculative but the researchers say it could be as a result of environmental carcinogens such as smoke from wood fires, through genetic factors, or from infectious diseases such as schistosomiasis which is caused by parasites.
They say that an underlying schistosomiasis infection seems a plausible explanation for the cancer in this individual as the disease had plagued inhabitants of Egypt and Nubia since at least 1500 BCE, and is now recognised as a cause of bladder cancer and breast cancer in men.
The researchers from Durham University and the British Museum say the discovery will help to explore underlying causes of cancer in ancient populations and provide insights into the evolution of cancer in the past. Ancient DNA analysis of skeletons and mummies with evidence of cancer can be used to detect mutations in specific genes that are known to be associated with particular types of cancer.
Even though cancer is one of the world’s leading causes of death today, it remains almost absent from the archaeological record compared to other pathological conditions, giving rise to the conclusion that the disease is mainly a product of modern living and increased longevity. These findings suggest that cancer is not only a modern disease but was already present in the Nile Valley in ancient times.
Previously, there has only been one convincing, and two tentative, examples of metastatic cancer predating the 1st millennium BC reported in human remains. However, because the remains derived from early 20th century excavations, only the skulls were retained, thus making a full re-analysis of each skeleton, to generate differential (possible) diagnoses, impossible.
Co-author, Dr Neal Spencer from the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum, said: “From footprints left on wet mud floors, to the healed fractures of many ancient inhabitants, Amara West offers a unique insight into what it was like to live there – and die – in Egyptian-ruled Upper Nubia 3200 years ago.”
Michaela Binder added: “Through taking an evolutionary approach to cancer, information from ancient human remains may prove a vital element in finding ways to address one of the world’s major health problems.”
The tomb, where the skeleton was found, appears to have been used for high-status individuals from the town, but not the ruling elite, based on the tomb architecture and aspects of funerary ritual.
The tomb’s architecture is evidence of a hybrid culture blending Pharaonic elements (burial goods, painted coffins) with Nubian culture (a low mound to mark the tomb).
The well preserved pottery recovered from the tomb provides a date within the 20th Dynasty (1187-1064 BCE), a period when Egypt ruled Upper Nubia, endured conflicts with Libya and while pharaohs such as Ramses III were being buried in the Valley of the Kings.
The research was funded by the Leverhulme Trust and the Institute of Bioarchaeology Amara West Field School, with the permission of the National Corporation of Antiquities and Museums in Sudan.
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If you have European ancestry and you’re fairly light-skinned with light hair and light-colored eyes, there is now new scientific data to help explain why you are the way you are.
A recent DNA study supports the suggestion that strong selection factors for those phenotypes (physical characteristics) acted upon pigmentation genes over the last 5,000 years. Sandra Wilde of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, along with her colleagues, developed estimates of selection acting on functional alleles of three pigmentation-related genes from Eneolithic, Bronze Age, and modern eastern European humans by using computer simulation techniques.
Reports Wilde, et. al: “Our results provide direct evidence that strong selection favoring lighter skin, hair, and eye pigmentation has been operating in European populations over the last 5,000 years……….In sum, a combination of selective pressures associated with living in northern latitudes, the adoption of an agriculturalist diet, and assortative mating may sufficiently explain the observed change from a darker phenotype during the Eneolithic/Early Bronze Age to a generally lighter one in modern Eastern Europeans…….” However, Wilde, et. al, caution that while this may be true, “other selective factors cannot be discounted.”*
The article detailing the study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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*Article #13-16513: “Direct evidence for positive selection of skin, hair, and eye pigmentation in Europeans during the last 5,000 y,” by Sandra Wilde et al. at www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1316513111
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And, Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery edition 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.
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Researchers who have conducted a new comparative phylogenetic study of the Yeniseian language group of Siberia and the Na-Dene languages of North America are shedding new light on our understanding of ancient migration patterns of people between Asia and North America thousands of years ago, suggesting that Native American origins may be somewhat more complex than a one-time, direct eastward migration of people out of Asia into North America via the Bering Land Bridge.
As related in a paper* published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on March 12, 2014 by Mark Sicoli from Georgetown University and Gary Holton from University of Alaska Fairbanks, the researchers applied a phylogenetic analysis method that was previously developed to investigate human evolutionary relationships, a technique that involves constructing a “tree” to indicate ancestral relationships based on shared traits. Using 40 languages that diffused across North America and Asia, they coded a linguistic dataset from the languages, and then modeled the relationships between the data. They then modeled the results against two popular migration patterns that have been proposed by scientists, one involving a simple direct migration from Asia to North America across the Bering Land Bridge, and an alternative that proposes a multi-directional radiation of people into Asia and North America out of Beringia, a landmass that once existed, connecting North America with Asia during the Pleistocene ice ages.
Their results supported the latter hypothesis. Said Sicoli, “We found substantial support for the out-of-Beringia dispersal adding to a growing body of evidence for an ancestral population in Beringia before the land bridge was inundated by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age.” They cite a DNA study outlined in a recent Perspective article in Science magazine by John Hoffecker of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (see Before They Were Native Americans, They Were Native Beringians published in Popular Archaeology) wherein a similar theory is advanced, suggesting a 5,000 – 10,000-year “Beringian Standstill” of people in the ancient, now inundated Bering Land Bridge area before their early coastal migration into North America and back-migration into Asia.
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This polar projection map of Asia and North America shows the approximate terminal Pleistocene shoreline. The center of geographic distribution of Yeniseian and Na-Dene language is in Beringia. From this center burgundy arrows extend toward the North American coast and into Siberia. A blue arrow indicates Interior dispersals of Na-Dene. Credit: Mark A. Sicoli; doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0091722.g004
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The study authors emphasize that this research does not weaken the popular paradigm of people entering the New World out of Asia across the Bering Land Bridge, but it does suggest that the migration was not a simple, unidirectional event from Asia into North America. They also suggest that, going forward, more phylogenetic studies and evolutionary modeling such as this can be useful in studying ancestral origins.
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* Sicoli MA, Holton G (2014) Linguistic Phylogenies Support Back-Migration from Beringia to Asia. PLoS ONE 9(3): e91722. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0091722.
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Cover Photo, Top Left: Map showing greatest extent of Beringia.
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Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email [email protected] and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com.
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.
At once both monumental and obscure, it stands within a visually serene yet ruggedly remote setting. Named after its nearby namesake village of Cosma, nestled in the upper Nepeña Valley of central Peru, it is a relatively unexplored complex that includes three human-made mounds thought by archaeologists to be nearly 3,000 years old. During the summer of 2014, it will become a destination for a small team of archaeologists and students who will, for the first time, begin serious archaeological excavations at the site.
Until now, it has attracted little attention from the scholarly community. But Andean archaeologist Kimberly Munro, who is also a PhD student with Louisiana State University, hopes to change that.
“I was revisiting prehistoric sites in the upper Nepeña Valley originally surveyed by Richard Daggett and Donald Proulx in the 1970s,” says Munro. “These sites were mostly ridge-top occupations and based on Daggett’s report, showed evidence of highland-coastal interaction; a topic of interest for me for my own dissertation research.”
A local school principal from the town of Salitre clued her in to a “large Inca site and a hilltop fortress known as Iglesia Hirca” near Cosma. On the way with some of her archaeological crew to investigate the tip, one site in particular caught Munro’s eye. “There is no public transport up the mountain to the town of Cosma, so we had to hitch a ride with the delivery truck that goes up once a week with the community’s supplies,” she said. “We were riding up on the top of the truck and when it took that last bend in the road before Cosma, I caught a glimpse of Karecoto [the local name of a large mound] for the first time – and honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I knew it wasn’t natural, or Inca, and its massive size and composition was reminiscent of [ancient Peruvian] highland centers. Even though we were in the upper reaches of the coastal valley, we were still in a coastal valley, and this was something different from what we had seen throughout the rest of Nepeña.”
What Munro was looking at was actually one of several ancient sites that, together, bespoke a possible associated complex of structures with beginnings at least during ancient Peru’s “Early Horizon” period (900 – 1 BCE). She knew this after her inspection of the mounds and survey of surface ceramics and other finds at the sites: “From the density of the ceramics, and the different archaeological components I believe Cosma has been continuously occupied since at least the Early Horizon.”
The largest of the three mounds in the complex, Karecoto, is about 250 meters long and 70 meters wide, and features an underground gallery and truncated top. The top is flat, and Munro describes its location as including walls and domestic structures surrounded by what appear to be prehistoric canals. About 600 meters south of the large mound and across a ravine is a smaller mound, known as Ashipucoto, featuring signs of exposed architecture at its top due to looting. Above Ashipucoto to the south is a ridgeline that supports what is interpreted as the domestic area of the site and, following the ridgeline about 1,000 meters up is an Inca occupation known as Caja Rumi, which features large boulders, more ancient terraces, and more domestic walls and architecture. Finally, perched atop an opposite ridge overlooking Karecoto and the village of Cosma is the third mound, and Iglesia Hirca, the hilltop fortress. All three mounds, excluding the Inca occupation, are tentatively dated by Munro to the Early Horizon Period.
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The Nepeña river, Nepeña valley, and the Cosma location (right of center) in this image, with map inset showing Cosma location within the Caceres District, Department of Ancash, central Peru. Image credit Kimberly Munro.
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The Karecoto and Ashipucoto mounds labeled within the research area. Photo credit Kimberly Munro.
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Photo illustrating the mound portion and the built-up platform. Photo credit Kimberly Munro.
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Interior of the Karecoto structure gallery. Photo credit Kimbery Munro.
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Project Director Kimberly Munro explores the gallery (tunnel). Said Munro: “Exploring the gallery was surreal. It was clearly looted and cleaned out to be exposed within the mound like that….but it was obvious no one had been inside in some time. I was already overwhelmed by the size of the mound looming before us, but I wasn’t prepared to see the exposed tunnel……” Photo credit David Chicoine.
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Wall remains of Iglesia Hirca, the hilltop fortress. Photo credit Kimberly Munro.
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Carved boulder at Caja Rumi. Photo credit Kimberly Munro.
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For Munro, the site complex holds enormous potential for shedding light on the social, cultural, and economic/trade interactions of the ancient communities that dotted the regions between the coastal communities and those of the highlands. “For those studying interactions,” says Munro, “many people have looked at opposite ends of the interaction spectrum, either the highlands, or the coast. Not as many have looked at these in-between zones, or buffer communities. The hilltop fortress is reminiscent as well of the monumental sites found in the Moro pocket, lower down in the upper-Nepeña Valley. Chullpas and the Inca carved stones also date us to the Middleand Late Horizons, respectively. It appears we may have a full sequence, and being able to understand how these people plugged into the changing networks or big power players through time will be an important research question for the excavations.”
To find the answers, Munro will be co-directing an initial research team with Jeisen Navarro Vega of the Registro Nacional de Arqueologos del Peru (RNA) to conduct test excavations at the Karecoto and Ashipucoto mounds and a ridge-top site, along with total station mapping of the overall Cosma site complex. The effort won’t be easy. There is no public transportation to the site. To get there, one must catch a ride on a once-a-week delivery truck, or hike 5 hours from the next closest town of Jimbe. This presents a logistical challenge for packing in tools or supplies. Secondly, components of the site are situated on high ridge-tops about 1,000 meters above Cosma, and the sites of Iglesia Hirca and Caja Rumi alone are a three-hour hike from the town. Moreover, the sites are overgrown with trees, bushes, and tall cacti, requiring the team to first clear the vegetation before mapping and excavations can begin.
Another challenge will be related to the community of Cosma, itself. There is electricity, but no running water. The team will need to find ways to maintain an adequate amount of drinking water and, in the longer term, build showers and latrines.
“I also question how the project and our presence will fit into the community dynamics,” Munro worries. “Cosma is very small and community oriented, and I hope our presence does not disrupt the current dynamics and relationships in Cosma. These people do not have individual property rights, everything is communally owned and managed. I am curious to see how everyone manages and reacts with us living and working in Cosma.”
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The town of Cosma, with the Cordillera Negra mountains in the background. The town has early 18th century Spanish colonial origins. It is listed by the district municipality as being “the oldest town in the department of Ancash.” Photo credit Kimberly Munro.
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Currently the project is accepting donations to help launch the project efforts. These donations will also help establish community infrastructure projects such as building communal bathrooms and showers. There is a donation page and link on the project website: http://padcaperu.wordpress.com/ The project is also accepting applications from individuals who are interested in participating in the excavations and mapping. Questions about donations or the upcoming project work should be directed to [email protected].
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During the summer of 2014, archaeologists will be investigating the remains of a 900-year-old Native American ceremonial center site located in Illinois. Known as Emerald Mound in Lebanon, IL, about 25 miles east of the Cahokia mounds, the site is thought to be culturally associated with the well-known Cahokia mounds of the Pre-Columbian Mississipian culture, an advanced society that spread across the present-day Southeastern United States centuries before European contact. (Popular Archaeology)
Archaeologists at IT Sligo have found bones of a Stone Age child and an adult in a tiny cave high on Knocknarea mountain near the town. Radiocarbon dating has shown that they are some 5,500 years old, which makes them among the earliest human bones found in the county. The find represents important fresh evidence of Knocknarea’s Neolithic (Stone Age) links and a prehistoric practice known as “excarnation”. Researchers discovered a total of 13 small bones and bone fragments in an almost inaccessible cave last November. (Irish Mirror)
Another page may be added to St. Augustine’s historical legacy this spring once archaeologists explore an uncharted area of the nation’s oldest colony. Archaeologists start their dig at the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park in a week. The site is regularly excavated by researchers who piece together the lives of America’s earliest Spanish settlers and the Native Americans who lived nearby. (The Saint Augustine Record)
Excavators working in the city of Cusco have discovered a burial site containing five individuals from the Marcavalle culture, a pre-Inca society. Andina news agency reports that the skeletal remains date back to around 1,000 BC. The burial site, which contained two double graves and one single grave, was found on land owned by a Cusco center for juvenile rehabilitation. Three of the individuals found at the site were adults at the time of their deaths, while one was a child and the other an adolescent. (Peru this Week)
A DOG walker took a step back in time during his routine stroll, finding footprints thought to be 7,000 years old. Archaeologist Barry Mead was walking his dog Peedie on the beach near his Cresswell home when he came across a newly-exposed inter-tidal peat bed. The find, at the southern end of Druridge Bay, included footprints dating back thousands of years, which are the first of their kind to be found at that part of the beach. (Morpeth Herald)
The bony discovery of 50 young male skeletons, decapitated and lumped in an old quarry pit before being found by diggers on an Olympic relief road in Weymouth five years ago, became an even more gripping story following scientific examinations revealing that this mass grave carried executed Vikings. David Score, of excavators Oxford Archaeology, called the test results “thrilling”, while Angus Campbell, the then-leader of Dorset County Council who is now the county’s Lord Lieutenant, admitted organisers “never would have dreamed of finding a Viking war grave.” (Culture24)
Vintage Gouda may be aged for five years, some cheddar for a decade. They’re both under-ripe youngsters compared with yellowish clumps – found on the necks and chests of Chinese mummies – now revealed to be the world’s oldest cheese. The Chinese cheese dates back as early as 1615 BC, making it by far the most ancient ever discovered. Thanks to the quick decay of most dairy products, there isn’t even a runner-up. (USA Today)
Rare, prehistoric rock art which could be more than 4,000 years old has been discovered in the Brecon Beacons. The Bronze Age discovery was made late last year by national park geologist Alan Bowring. Experts claim the stone probably served as a way marker for farming communities. Similar stones have been found in other parts of Britain but they are thought to be rare in mid Wales. (BBC News)
A statue of the daughter of King Amenhotep III, grandfather of Tutankhamen and ruler of Egypt around 3,350 years ago, has been unearthed by a team of Egyptian and European archaeologists. The statue of Princess Iset was discovered at the temple of her pharaoh father on the western bank of the Nile in the southern city of Luxor, the Egyptian antiquities ministry said on Friday. (Reuters)
During the summer of 2014, archaeologists will be investigating the remains of a 900-year-old Native American ceremonial center site located in Illinois. Known as Emerald Mound in Lebanon, IL, about 25 miles east of the Cahokia mounds, the site is thought to be culturally associated with the well-known Cahokia mounds of the Pre-Columbian Mississipian culture, an advanced society that spread across the present-day Southeastern United States centuries before European contact.
Under the leadership of Timothy R. Pauketat of the University of Illinois and in conjunction with Indiana University, the effort will field crews of researchers and students to excavate a significant portion of what is thought to be a complex consisting of structures and other archaeological features such as houses and storage pits related to a principal 6-meter-high earthen platform. Investigations will also include geophysical exploration and mapping.
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Since their discoveries, the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, those hapless victims of the Mt. Vesuvius eruptions of AD 79, have captured the public’s imagination and have thus commanded the attention of both the academic community and the general public. The recent exhibition at the British Museum that highlighted Pompeii and Herculaneum, coupled with the release of the major motion picture, Pompeii, have popularized the ancient cities all the more. There is, however, another story along the northern slopes of Vesuvius that tells of a people who lived and died on the “other side” of the better-known setting. Archaeologists have recently uncovered evidence of the people who lived and died on what has been termed “the dark side of Vesuvius”, the northern slopes of the volcano and the adjoining ancient territories of Nola and Neapolis. It is a story that may encompass not just the well-known AD 79 eruption, but multiple past eruptions as well. Known as the Apolline Project, teams of archaeologists, other scientists, students and volunteers have been slowly piecing together what remains of the ancient settlements that survived and were dramatically affected by these cataclysms.
The Northern Territories
The fertile landscape around Mount Vesuvius has always made it an idyllic and desirable setting for human occupation. Rich in minerals, rivers, and hot springs, this fertile volcanic landscape is as inviting as it is precarious, yielding a wealth of foodstuffs such as olives, hazelnuts, shellfish, figs, and grapes, to name a few. Archaeologists have now discovered evidence of ancient ploughed fields, orchards, vineyards, and Roman centuriation grids, demonstrating that in antiquity the region was thoroughly exploited through the cultivation of a wide variety of crops, as it is today. Considering this abundance and variety of natural resources, from foodstuffs and fuel to natural building materials, the northern territories of Nola and Neapolis were well placed to become centers of mass industrial activity. Ancient literary sources testify to this; for example, Strabo described the area as “dotted all around with cities, buildings, and plantations, so thoroughly intertwined that it resembles closely a metropolis”. Wine, in particular, was a valuable export for this prosperous region, supporting trade connections as far as Britannia and India. Understanding the exact nature of the communications and exchange processes within this region both before and after AD 79 has become the principal pursuit of the Project, which seeks to understand not only the people who lived during these times, but the nature of the economic and industrial landscape as well.
But the archaeologists face a challenge not uncommon in the field. The region of Campania, which today contains the traces of this area, has been intensively settled and urbanized and as a result, only a small percentage of its vast history has been brought to light. It presents a real obstacle to archaeologists who are attempting to reconstruct an image of the ancient landscape and its settlements. Nevertheless, the accessible sites lying on the northern slope of Vesuvius have provided them with a window with long spans of occupation featuring multiple stages of post-eruption recovery and repopulation that provide clear, rich stratigraphies, allowing for the creation of extended chronologies and timelines.
The Finds at Pollena Trocchia
Key to the efforts on the northern slope has been the discovery of a Roman bath and villa site located in the town of Pollena Trocchia. Since 2005, most of the baths have been unearthed, revealing evidence to suggest that it was part of a larger villa complex now buried underneath an adjacent modern block of flats. The discovery of the volcanic material deposited by the AD 79 eruption indicated that the villa complex, or the baths at least, were built in the years after the eruption. As a result, the insight that the finds have provided in terms of both the inhabitants and their impetus to settle there has been extraordinary. The discovery of a brick stamp imprinted onto a tile lining the bath’s hypocaust, for example, shows the distinct mark of the Domitii brothers, a prosperous family from Rome who produced this stamp between AD 75 and AD 95. This connection with Rome, along with the many lavish finds, suggests that the inhabitants of this site were very affluent and settled there soon after the eruption, perhaps tempted by the fertile earth left by the volcano.
Moreover, the rich data from the site at Pollena Trocchia obtained through charcoal analysis of carbonized plant remains has revealed the exact species of vegetation and offers insight into how they were cultivated to shape the Roman landscape. For example, evidence of chestnut (a known construction timber used by the Romans) suggests that the late antique woodland on the north slope may have been partially and purposefully composed of chestnut trees. In fact, the plethora of woodland that blanketed Mount Vesuvius in Roman times was also required in vast quantities for fueling industries such as pottery-making and iron-smithing. It also played a more domestic role in cooking and in the heating of Roman baths. By identifying evidence of activities that would have incorporated wood, as well as the remains of wood itself, archaeologists and palaeobotanists alike are investigating the transportation and management of ancient forests, and whether the woodland of Vesuvius was enough to satisfy the enormous demand for timber.
The researchers have found that not all archaeological finds, however, are as easily comprehensible. A few years ago, the remains of two children were discovered buried in two small amphorae. Amphorae are large pottery vessels that were usually used for transporting wine and other foodstuffs, but they were also occasionally used for infant burials. Thus far, the tale surrounding these children, possibly twins, remains a mystery.
The occupation of this site may have ended the way it began, with a volcanic eruption. This eruption struck on November 6th, AD 472, the site itself being destroyed by lahars. The lahars were produced by the eruption, creating an atmospheric disturbance that caused severe downpours of rain, which then flowed rapidly down the mountainsides, picking up literally tons of ash and mud on their way. As devastating as this event was, the stratigraphy it left behind has been indispensable to the archaeological research.
Pollena Trocchia is not the only site that has shed light on the area. For example, the grand villa complex at Somma Vesuviana boasts a long and mysterious history, with speculation about its ownership and function. Around the time of its discovery, it was thought to have been owned by the Emperor Augustus himself. Originally a luxurious stately home, the function of the building changed after the AD 79 eruption, and there are strong indications that it might have been an industrial center for the mass production of wine. During excavations by the University of Tokyo, a plethora of Dionysiac imagery and motifs have been found throughout the structure, strongly conveying Dionysus, the Roman God of wine and merriment, as the patron diety. One beautiful, well-preserved, marble statue particularly evokes this: it features the god holding a panther cub, a very rare pose. Due to the size and discoveries made at this site, it is well known within the field of Roman archaeology. It is this scale of attention that Apolline Project researchers hope to achieve for the Pollena excavations. In addition, the Villa of Lauro, also in this region, has had its fair share of archaeological attention. Abandoned after the AD 472 eruption, these Roman baths are thought to have belonged to a larger villa complex, much like those at Pollena Trocchia. Thanks to an extraordinary fresco found in Lancellotti Castle nearby, researchers have deduced that much of this villa was removed to construct the church of San Giovanni del Palco. The Villa of Laura baths are most noted for their decoration. Also known as ‘The Blue Baths’, the walls, flooring, and stone furnishings are studded with bold blue tesserae, shells and other decorative materials. The surviving mosaics depict detailed scenes involving various birds, plant life, and deer hunting.
Combining secondary sources such as maps and literary accounts with results of the actual excavations, the Project has constructed local archaeological maps of the area around Nola and Neapolis, thus giving back to the modern day residents a sense of their history and identity. Project staff have also engaged with local landowners and enthusiasts to give the community an active role in the search for their heritage, a quest that is expected to continue for generations.
For more information on the work of the Apolline Project and how to participate, go to the website at http://www.apollineproject.org/.
Interested readers may also contact the project’s director, Girolamo Ferdinando De Simone at [email protected].
Today there is great silence on the hilltop overlooking the Ansedonia promontory. Here lie the ruins of the ancient Roman town of Cosa. Looking down from this place, one sees the glistening Tyrrenian Sea, whose light breeze caresses the leaves of thousand-year-old olive trees and wafts up the smell of wild flowers. It isn’t easy to imagine how different this sanctuary of peace and meditation was many centuries ago. In fact, in the second century BCE this was a busy place, bustling with activity made possible by slave labor: wine-making, manufacturing amphorae, and wine shipping were its activities. Since before the eighth century BCE, the wine trade had been mainly a Greek and Etruscan business. But after Rome’s 241 BCE conquest of the so-called ‘Granary of Rome’—Sicily — the Romans had the chance to become wine-making entrepreneurs, cultivating a product much more profitable than that of the necessary, but less lucrative, wheat. The Greek wine business was small in comparison with what the Romans had in mind.
As a first step, Rome relocated the production zone to Tuscany from their highly praised vineyards around Naples. Cosa was some 200 miles further north, and had more fertile land, but it couldn’t produce wines that could compete with the full-bodied Falernian and its high alcohol content, which the home market demanded. Nevertheless, coastal Tuscany’s vineyards were deemed a good-enough quality. But above all, its output was enormously greater.
Cosa’s huge vineyards were owned by senatorial families, the most powerful of them being the Sestius family. However, the Sestius estate went well beyond growing grapes; it was a full-cycle organization. In addition to cultivating the vineyards and vinting the wine according to buyers’ tastes, a slave-run factory produced amphorae from local clay. These were then filled with wine, sealed, and transported to a nearby harbour of Etruscan origins—Portus Cosanus—with its new, complex canal system to keep it free of sand. There, hundreds of workers loaded ships with amphorae by the thousands.
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Cosa: South view of harbor. In the background: remains of Roman port. Photo by Ugo Venturoli
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Port of Cosa from above: on the left Roman masonry, at center mouth of one of the Roman drain canals dug to avoid sanding of port. Photo by Ugo Venturoli
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Port of Cosa (Portus Cosanus): on the left the remains of Roman masonry. Photo by Ugo Venturoli
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The Sestius family was not only in business to vint wine and mass-produce amphorae, but to ship that wine to the consumer as well, by sea and by land. It’s not known if they used family owned ships, or simply contracted with maritime enterprises. Amphorae bearing SES on their necks, for SEStius, have been found all over Roman territory. But at least 70 percent of Roman wine from Cosa was bound to ports in what is now southern France. Researchers have calculated that from the beginning of the second to the early decades of the first century BCE, no less than 400,000 amphorae a year were exported to Gaul alone! Romans mainly used the Dressel type1 amphora for shipping by sea. That type had a 25-liter capacity (5 1/2 gallons), which means that, during that century Romans sent Gaul a billion liters of wine (264,172,000 gallons). These imposing numbers are estimates based on the 60 to 80 sunken mercantile wine shipwrecks discovered in the Mediterranean. Their loads are often almost undamaged, so it’s possible to have a precise idea of what this trade was like. The medium-tonnage wine ships weren’t small vessels; they were normally 40 meters or more in length. Each ship could carry up to 3,000 amphorae, piled in layers—a payload of 150 tons. These vessels had been designed purely for coastal navigation. So, when heavily laden, they were unable to withstand open ocean conditions. Their inability to sail safely in heavy seas is evident from the presence of multiple wrecks in relatively confined areas of the sometimes rough Mediterranean Sea, within the windiest reaches. Owing to their round keels and square rigging, they were unfit for sailing into the wind—a serious drawback for northbound ships facing northerly prevailing winds. The poorly suited coastal vessels couldn’t wait for southerly winds that would have enabled a fast broad reach. The south winds, called Vulturnus, occur on average only 4 to 6 days a month. So how did Roman wine get safely and handily across the dangerous Gulf of Lions off Southern France, carrying the incredible quantity of wine the Gauls were craving?
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At center (left lower side covered by the net) Dressel type 1 amphora of Cosa manufacture. Very strong and thick; could be piled up to 5 layers on wine-carriers. Photo by Ugo Venturoli, exhibit at Cosa Museum
Section of Roman shipwreck, showing the Dressel type 1 amphorae load piled in layers. Note the amphorae handles positioned lengthwise to avoid breakage. Photo by Ugo Venturoli, image illustration at Cosa Museum.
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In the decade after 1972 French archaeologists André Tchernia and Patrice Pomey had the opportunity to study the wreck of a previously unknown kind of wine-ship. Discovered in 1967 near Toulon by scuba divers of the Ecole de plongée de la Marine Nationale (National Navy Diving School), this shipwreck yielded a definitive answer regarding Rome’s ability to sail windward in the moderate gale conditions frequent in the Gulf of Lions. Named for its place of discovery, the “wreck of Madrague de Giens” lies beneath about 20 meters of water, and sank between about 75 and 50 BCE. Its 40–45-meter length and 500-ton displacement meant that it could carry 8,000 amphorae, in five layers: a payload of around 400 tons. This shipwreck’s discovery marked a turning point in the study of Roman nautical construction and seamanship. Since windward performance was a prime consideration in the Gulf of Lions, this new kind of ship was not only cleverly designed and sturdily built, but it also boasted design innovations meant specifically for the voyage to Gaul: a deep keel with a centerboard-like action for sailing closer to the wind, two masts with a large artemon sail (dolon) to make tacking easier, and a reverse sharp bow to improve sea-worthiness. Nonetheless, although ingeniously designed for the Gulf of Lion weather, this ship sank. Perhaps the sinking had nothing to do with its design. It may have been a simple mistake, perhaps while tacking in a strong gust: the boat heeled too much and was swamped.
The Mandrague de Giens wreck wasn’t connected with the Sestius family organization, but there is good reason to think that such vessels did make up part of the merchant fleet sailing out of Cosa. Whether or not ships of this kind were in the service of the Sestius family, the family shipped huge quantities to what is now southern France. Confirmation comes from a group of French diver-archaeologists, who for more than 25 years studied a different shipwreck, found in 1952 in the Gulf of Marseille, at a depth of 45 meters. It’s name is the “Wreck of Gran Conglué 2,” after the island of its discovery. A very complex archaeological site, it was eventually revealed to be two shipwrecks, one of which was loaded with more than 1,000 amphorae bearing the SES trademark from Roman Cosa.
Roman wine wasn’t a cheap commodity in Gaul. Its consumption was evidently a status symbol. This is made clear by archaeological excavations in far away Corent—almost in the geographic center of France—near the ill-fated town of Gergovie (Gergouia), home of Vercigertorix, the chief of Gaul’s rebellion. Fragments of more than 40 tons of amphorae were used as a paving material for the houses of rich Gauls. This amphora pavement stands as material evidence of ostentation, a symbol of opulence, because of the volume and value of the wine consumed to have produced so many empty amphorae. Use of wine amphorae as paving material aslo gives us information about the inclination and economic power of the Gauls to allocate huge resources for a product of constantly increasing profitability for the Romans. Moreover, only the lure of vast profits can explain the presence of enterprising Roman wine traders in a hostile region, well beyond the protection that Roman legions provided in the occupied areas of southern Gaul.
In the monumental Bibliotheca historica about the habits of the Gauls, Greek historian Diodorus Siculus describes the relationship between wine and the Gauls:
They like beyond any reasonable measure the wine imported by merchants and they drink it straight[1] and they are so avid of this drink that they get drunk and fall asleep or assume insane and furious attitudes.
For this reason many merchants from Italy, with their usual lust for money, think that this Gauls propensity is a gift given to them by the God of commerce.
So, importing more wine on river waterways, or through the plains making use of vehicles, they make an incredible amount money: giving one amphora of wine they get in exchange a youth, a slave being so the compensation for the drink. [2]
With the manifold interests it involved, the Roman wine trade was a business unlike any other. Eventually, Rome’s merchant presence in Gaul came to an abrupt and brutal end. On February 13th, 53 BCE, in Cenabum, today’s Orléans, all the Roman merchants were massacred. Julius Caesar gives a brief report of the deed in his first-hand account of the Gallic Wars, Commentarii de Bello Gallico:
When that day arrived, the Carnutes . . . at a given signal fell upon Cenabum and killed the Roman citizens who had settled there for reasons of trade, . . . sacking their goods.[3]
Other than political motivations, Caesar says nothing about what else might have caused this extreme Gallic reaction to Roman mercantile penetration. Clearly, Caesar was well aware of the debilitating effects that strong Roman wine could have on populations—such as the Gauls—accustomed to a low-alcohol drink like beer.
In a less well-known passage of de Bello Gallico, Caesar writes about the Suebi:
They do not allow at all the importation of wine, because they think that, in order to endure hard work, it softens and effeminates men. [4]
With written evidence of a social backlash to wine’s negative effects, it seems reasonable to suppose that the massacre of Roman traders at Cenabum grew out of a hostile attitude on the part of influential Gauls towards the intoxicating and habit-forming properties of the Roman beverage.
Referring to the Gallic insurgency that began at Cenabum, French historian Fernand Braudel[5] dares this comment after quoting the Diodorus Siculus passage above:
Here we have something which calls to our mind the dope traffic which today brings so many benefits to the intermediaries, the transporters, the distributors and, finally, to the poppy cultivators in the Far East (1986).
After the Cenabum massacre, perhaps to continue imposing wine on a susceptible population, Caesar tightened the vise of his legions on the Gauls. In September, 52 BCE, in Alésia, today’s Alise St. Reine in the heart of Burgundy, the rebellion against the Romans was crushed, Vercingetorix surrendered and, brought to Rome as a prisoner, later executed.
The fight continued for some months, but before the end of 51 BCE, after seven years of intermittent war, the entire region of Gaul was pacified. This Pax Romana (Roman peace), according to Plutarch, cost Gaul over a million dead, and a million natives of both sexes reduced to slavery.
Roman wine traders could continue their profitable work.
The first commercial conquest in history was complete.
A tunneled canal excavated in the rock to direct the evacuated sand to the sea. Photo by Ugo Venturoli.
Castings of neck markings of Sestius family amphoras. Symbols after letters SES indicate: provenance, type of wine, quality, price — much like labels today. Photo by Ugo Venturoli.Photo by Ugo Venturoli.
Artist’s rendering of the ship known as the “wreck of Mandrague de Giens.” CREDIT: Water color by Jean Marie Gassend.
Cosa Capitolium north side. The temple was dedicated to the Capitoline Triad composed of the three supreme deities: Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. Photo by Ugo Venturoli.
Cosa Forum remains. Photo by Ugo Venturoli.
Capitolium, south side. Photo by Ugo Venturoli.
Skeleton’s house (Roman masonry). Photo by Ugo Venturoli.
Skeleton’s house, mosaic paving. Photo by Ugo Venturoli.
Cosa town walls, north view and north town entryway. Photo by Ugo Venturoli.
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Olive tree of Cosa hill, purported to be 1,000 years old. Photo by Ugo Venturoli.
Cover Photo, Top Left: Roman wine amphorae. Carole Raddato, Wikimedia Commons
[1] Romans drank their wine—which usually had an alcohol content of 16% by volume—mixed with water: 1 part wine to two parts water.
[3] “Ubi ea dies venit, Carnutes… Cenabum signo dato concurrunt civesque romanos, qui negotiandi causa ibi constiterant,….interficiunt bonaque eorum diripiunt.”
Julius Caesar Commentarii de Bello Gallico 7.3.
[4] “Vinum ad se omnino importari non sinunt, quod ea re ad laborem ferendum remollescere homines atque effeminari arbitrantur.”
Julius Caesar Commentarii de Bello Gallico 4.2.
[5] “Voilà qui fait penser au commerce de la drogue qui, aujourd’hui, favorise tellements les intérmediaires, les trasporteurs, les distributeurs, et au lointain départ, les paysans cultivateurs de pavot, en Extreme-Orient.”
Fernand Braudel, L’Identité de la France (1986), 111.
Pieta Greaves is the Staffordshire Hoard Conservation Project Manager at the Birmingham Museums Trust. Her conservation specialisation is in archaeological materials. This has led her to work on some of the most important archaeological assemblages excavated in the last few years. For these projects it was important to liaise with a range of professionals including curators, archaeologists, conservators and other experts, to ensure the objects reached their archaeological potential.
Pieta has also worked on an extensive range of other object types, including social history, arms and armour, statues and sculpture, also carrying out preventive and remedial conservation for exhibition, loans, storage and research. Prior to training as a conservator at Cardiff University, she worked as an archaeologist in New Zealand and Australia, having graduated from Auckland University in 2001. She has also worked on overseas excavations in Egypt and during the summer of 2014 will be spending 4 weeks conserving an important wall painting in Belize as part of the Maya Research Program field school.
The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork ever found, anywhere in the world. Discovered in a field near the village of Hammerwich, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, England on 5 July 2009, the Hoard totals 5.094 kilos of gold, 1.442 kilos of silver and 3,500 cloisonné garnets. There is nothing comparable in terms of content and quantity in the UK or mainland Europe. It is remarkable for being almost exclusively military in nature, with an extraordinary quantity of pommel caps and hilt plates. Many feature beautiful garnet inlays or animals in elaborate filigree. There are also a small but significant number of Christian objects, including crosses and a biblical inscription.
The finds were jointly acquired by the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG) and the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent (PMAG) following one of the most successful public fundraising campaigns in English history, raising the £3.285m (US$5.255m) asking price in less than three months.
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The hoard emerges. Courtesy Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
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The Staffordshire Hoard conservation and research program is a multi-disciplinary collaborative program. The conservation program began in 2010 and has to date conserved over 3500 objects and fragments. It is now beginning to shed light on the technological capabilities and techniques of the Anglo-Saxon craftsmen. The artefacts have tentatively been dated to the late 6th and early 7th centuries, placing the origin of the items in the time of the Kingdom of Mercia.
Since the discovery, experts have theorised about why the hoard was deposited where it was, and whether the treasure was left by Christians or pagans. Every passing day reveals new facts and questions about the Hoard, its history and its heritage, but what we already know is that the average quality of the workmanship is extremely high, comparable to some of the finest known objects in the Anglo-Saxon world. This is especially remarkable in view of the large number of individual objects from which the elements in the hoard came.
The hoard contains mainly fittings from edged weapons, including sword pommel caps. The pommel cap is the tip of the hilt of a sword that anchors the hilt fittings to the sword blade. Single pommel caps from this period are incredibly rare archaeological finds, and to find 93 together is unprecedented.
However, some important elements are missing from the hoard. It does not contain any of the iron sword blades or organic components, such as horn or wooden grips, which would have been part of the original object. All of the objects have historical damage due to their harsh dismantling at some point prior to deposition. Many are torn or misshapen and some show the early stages of having been cut into pieces.
The famous Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf contains lines that some experts believe may describe circumstances similar to the burial of the hoard:
“One warrior stripped the other, looted Ongentheow’s iron mail-coat, his hard sword-hilt, his helmet too, and carried graith to King Hygelac; he accepted the prize, promised fairly that reward would come, and kept his word. They let the ground keep that ancestral treasure, gold under gravel, gone to earth, as useless to men now as it ever was.”
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Artifact showing its damaged condition. CourtesyBirmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
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The hoard contains only one written text, a biblical inscription written in Latin and misspelled in two places. It reads: “Rise up, O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from thy face.” (Numbers 10:35).
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Biblical inscription strip. Courtesy Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
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The role conservation plays in the discovery process
The conservation team is based at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. With the help of common garden thorns and high powered microscopes, the conservators have been uncovering spectacular details of the elaborate and minuscule designs as well as technological aspects of the construction of the objects, which has enriched the whole project.
Conservators are the first to see the objects and record their details. The fine craftsmanship of the filigree and cloisonné is astonishing.
Our objective is to clean away soils that are obscuring the surface, arrest any corrosion of the hoard objects, and ensure their long-term preservation. The work of conservators is important not only because it preserves the Hoard objects for the future but also because the careful examination and cleaning involved may reveal information that helps us understand the artefacts more fully.
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Conservation underway. Courtesy Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
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Our job is like excavation – but on a much smaller scale. Instead of trowels and mattocks we use cotton swabs and thorns. The gold is soft, and can scratch easily. Traditional conservation tools such as scalpels and steel pins may risk damage to the delicate surfaces. Thorns are a natural product, and unlike cocktail sticks or metal tools they neither split nor scratch the gold.
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Natural thorns used for the delicate cleaning of the artifacts. CourtesyBirmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
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Like an excavation, the process is inherently destructive, affecting how we decide what to do and how to execute our treatments. When we clean we remove soil which cannot be replaced. We must be able to justify our actions; we are removing one part of an object’s history to reveal another.
Our main goal is to ensure the objects’ survival. Our approach is unique to each piece, depending on its condition: cleaning can reveal both physical weakness, such as broken and distorted fragments, and chemical weakness, such as corrosion of the copper alloy and silver components. Physically unstable objects require consolidation or the addition of another material to strengthen them. In these cases we must weigh the fragile nature of an object against the effect of a consolidant or adhesive on its research potential. The question we ask ourselves each time is this: Will this have a negative effect on future analysis or understanding? The answer is not always obvious.
In addition to cleaning and stabilising hoard objects, an important part of the conservation process is producing accurate documentation of the objects and the conservation treatments applied to them. Thorough photographic and written documentation of objects is useful to researchers, and because of the many hours spent examining objects under the microscope, the conservator is often the person who is most familiar with every small detail of an object. Tiny details that might be missed in a less thorough examination can reveal useful information such as materials present (inlays, solder, organic material etc), evidence of how the object was made or evidence of use (worn areas, dents, cuts, etc), and it is important that this information be made accessible to others.
Conservation documentation for the Hoard consists primarily of digital photographs and photomicrographs (i.e., photographs taken through a microscope) and written reports; in some cases hand-drawn sketches are made and scanned electronically.
What have we discovered during the conservation?
The fact the Hoard objects were damaged when they were dismantled prior to deposition provides a great advantage when it comes to understanding them. The fragmentary nature of the hoard helps us to see features that are hidden on whole or undamaged examples from other sites. Possible maker’s marks, laying out marks and solder are just some of the details that we have been able to observe under the microscope due to the damage.
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Damage revealing construction. Courtesy Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
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There are many types of objects in the Hoard, but focusing on three types best describes how conservation plays its part in the post-excavation process: these are filigree, garnet cloisonné and niello work.
Filigree
The main elements of the filigree are short lengths of wire which are soldered onto the surface of objects to form zoomorphic and geometric designs. The most common types are beaded wires (so-called because they have a series of bumps that resemble a string of beads) and round twisted wires. At first glance these designs might look as if they are formed by long interlaced wires, but they are actually formed of many short sections of wire painstakingly arranged to create this illusion. Careful examination of the wires reveals the snipped ends where the interlace strands meet. The level of detail and the size of the wires are a great delight: some are very tiny at only 0.3mm wide and 3.99mm long.
When we clean such objects, we are looking for evidence of how they were made, including how the wires were attached or soldered to the back plate.
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Above and below, filigree details. Courtesy Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
Detail showing two of the snake heads with gold granules for eyes. Courtesy Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
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Garnet cloisonné
The garnet cloisonné objects show a high level of sophistication in both their construction and design. Like the filigree objects, the garnets are also designed in both geometric and zoomorphic designs. We are yet to discover how the garnets were cut into such small sizes and thicknesses. Garnets do not naturally cleave, so it would have required grinding. But this is difficult due to the very hard nature of the stones.
Each garnet fits perfectly into an individual cell and a small gold stamped foil sits behind each stone. The purpose of this stone is to provide a reflective surface so the garnets appear to sparkle brightly. This concept is similar to the manufacture of bicycle reflectors today. Four different gold foil designs have been identified across the Hoard objects and from this, researchers may be able to make comparisons with other objects that have been found in Britain, in an attempt to identify historical workshops or regional types. Underneath the foil is a ‘paste’ possibly made of beeswax or a similar material. The purpose of the paste is to level the individual garnets so they sit flush across the surface of the object and sparkle.
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Above and below: Foils behind garnets. Courtesy Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
Conservation has revealed some unexpected discoveries among the cloisonné objects, including tiny pieces of inset glass. So far, 17 items have been found to contain red glass: some of which seems to have been used to replace garnets that had become damaged or lost. There are also examples of green and blue glass, as well as fine examples of millefiori checked designs, which are likely to be recycled Roman glass elements.
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Millefiori Courtesy Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
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Glass replacement Courtesy Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
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Niello
Niello is a term used to describe a black applied design technique. Niello is a metal sulphide formed of silver, copper and/or lead filings combined with sulphur. When heated, this mixture fuses into a hard, slightly glossy black substance that is used as an inlay material. Typically, a channel is carved into a metal object and the niello is inserted into it, where it hardens.
Much of the niello work is applied onto silver, and the Hoard contains a large number of broken fragments of this, whereas only three Hoard objects made of gold have niello inlay. The silver objects are fragmentary, heavily tarnished and corroded, and piecing them back together, rather like a giant jigsaw, is one of the major challenges for the conservation team.
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Niello under reconstruction. Courtesy Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
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What else have we been doing in conservation?
The project has also taken an open and collegiate approach to conservation, unique for archaeological materials recovered in the UK.
The conservation team has not only conserved the materials to a high professional standard, it has also successfully engaged both conservation professionals and public audiences, and through delivery of an extraordinary range of activities over a short time period, has raised the profile of conservation in the UK and worldwide.
We have launched many initiatives, including engagement with the conservation profession in the form of professional development placements for experienced conservators, internships for conservation students, and the inclusion of volunteers and non-conservation placements. Wider engagement through a programme of talks, studio tours, open days, written and video blogs was launched by the conservation team to create a supportive public community of interest.
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Young students at microscopes. Courtesy Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
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What’s next for the Hoard?
The conservation work is ongoing and we are working in close collaboration with the research project team to create a detailed record of the Hoard and to better understand its wider context. Over the next few years, the conservation and research project will deliver a publicly-accessible database and a landmark academic volume about the collection. However, there are still many new questions to answer about the Hoard, and we continue to fundraise to support both the conservation and research of this unique, exciting and important collection.
Meredith Poole has been a Staff Archaeologist with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for 26 years. In addition to field work, her responsibilities include outreach and archaeology education. Meredith received her MA in Anthropology from the College of William and Mary, and her BA from Hamilton College.
About 80 years ago, more than five years before the onset of World War II, American laborers and archaeologists completed reconstruction on what was perhaps America’s most iconic architectural symbol of British colonialism—the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, Virginia. Just before the outbreak of revolutionary war, it was still the seat of British power and authority on American soil. Today, it is arguably the grandest reconstructed visible reminder of the U.S. colonial past. The following article (originally published in March 2014 in Popular Archaeology Magazine) by Meredith Poole, senior staff archaeologist with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, revisits the events and people who resurrected the Palace from its oblivion on the landscape, creating a powerful magnet for thousands of visitors every year and, to this day, still a subject for education and historical research.
—DM
Three days before Christmas, 1781, the sun set on the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg for the final time. A few hours later, an errant spark…or a disaffected citizen… set fire to this stately brick edifice, reducing it to rubble by sunrise. News of the unfortunate event spread quickly, prompting the following lines in a Charleston newspaper:
“Last Saturday night about eleven o’clock the palace in the City of Williamsburg, which is supposed to have been set on fire by some malicious person, was in three hours burnt to the ground. This elegant building has been for sometime past a continental hospital, and upwards of one hundred sick and wounded soldiers were in it when the fire was discovered, but by the timely exertions of a few people, only one perished in the flames.”
(The Royal Gazette of Charleston, South Carolina)
The dramatic story of the wounded soldiers aside, the loss of the Palace was devastating. Indeed, if the story had ended with that smoldering rubble, today’s visitor to Colonial Williamsburg might feel cheated.
The reconstructed Palace is among Colonial Williamsburg’s most popular attractions, welcoming more than 350,000 visitors each year. While far fewer eighteenth-century citizens were invited through its scrolled iron gates, the “Palace” (perhaps a tongue-in-cheek reference to the excesses of its construction) was an attraction. Completed in 1722 after sixteen years of labor, this over-the-top residence for the royal governor, the king’s representative in Virginia, was unlike anything most citizens had seen on this side of the Atlantic. The interior incorporated extravagant materials: marble floors and walnut paneling. As many as twenty support buildings…from an ice house to a smokehouse to a bathhouse… dotted its landscape, and the lavish grounds included canals, terraces, walks, and ornamental gardens. True, by 1781 (as the newspaper article hints) many of these glories had begun to fade, particularly after 1780 when removal of the capital to Richmond took the sitting governor, Thomas Jefferson, with it. Nevertheless, the vacated Palace remained an iconic building, symbolizing the importance — even in the past tense — of Williamsburg as political center.
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The reconstructed Governor’s Palace. Photo credit: Roy Kelley
Fast-forward to 1927. Fueled by the vision of cleric/preservationist Rev. W.A.R. Goodwin and the philanthropic impulse of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., plans for restoring Williamsburg to its eighteenth-century heyday were underway. Behind the patched facades of the twentieth-century town, researchers had discovered eighty-eight buildings dating from the 1700s…a healthy core, but only a fraction of those standing at the eve of the American Revolution. Among the missing were public buildings important to Williamsburg’s identity: the Capitol, the Raleigh Tavern, and the Governor’s Palace. To move the restoration forward, evidence for these buildings would have to be located. And so in November 1928 Williamsburg’s Advisory Committee of Architects, a steering committee of respected professionals, moved that: “Someone, preferably an archaeologist, be hired to make a thorough record of the restoration.”
Prentice Duell hardly seemed to be that man. Trained as an architect, he was a lecturer in classical archaeology at Bryn Mawr and had just completed a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. In 1930, as he was being courted to oversee the Palace excavation, Duell had just been named the Oriental Institute’s Field Director for the Sakkarah Pyramid Expedition. Such a resume begs the question: Why an Egyptologist in Williamsburg?
Archaeology was a different discipline in 1930. Today, Colonial Williamsburg employs historical archaeologists, specializing in sites and artifacts of North America’s documented past. In Duell’s time, this distinction was still decades in the future, leaving classical archaeologists and Egyptologists at the forefront of the field. Particularly in the wake of Howard Carter’s discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamen, archaeology’s “big names” were to be found among the ranks of Egyptologists.
And so on Monday morning, June 30th 1930, Egyptologist Prentice Duell found himself in Williamsburg, Virginia, at the south end of Palace Green, surveying the project area. It might have been easier to imagine a pyramid on this landscape than it was to envision the Palace. Once the tree-lined approach to the seat of royal authority, Palace Green was now cluttered with monuments to more recent history. Power lines swung lazily over the street, and in the near distance a marble obelisk commemorated the Civil War dead. Williamsburg’s new high school, completed in 1921, occupied the northern end of the green, and in its shadow stood the 1870 Matty School. What Duell saw was a neighborhood. Behind the schools, in the former “governor’s park,” a network of streets delivered Williamsburg residents to their 20th century destinations: the Virginia Electric and Power Company, the Williamsburg Laundry, an ice-making plant, a tin shop, and the C&O railroad station. There were homes sprinkled among these businesses…but no visible evidence of eighteenth century grandeur.
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The Palace neighborhood in 1929. Major Palace features outlined in red; 20th century buildings in blue. Diamond shapes are brick piers marking garden walls (image based on architectural drawing entitled “Sketch of Site of Colonial Governor’s Palace and Grounds as it appeared in 1929 before excaations were made.” May 23, 1933.) Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
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Historic maps and drawings told a different story. Duell’s arsenal included three key pieces: the Frenchman’s Map, drawn near the end of the American Revolution, indicated the Palace’s placement relative to the town. The Bodleian Plate, a 1740 copperplate engraving named for the British library in which it had recently been discovered, provided elevations for the Palace and its Advance Buildings, and hinted at the surrounding gardens. The final clue was a sketch done by Thomas Jefferson in 1779. Recently elected Virginia’s governor, Jefferson was planning changes to his new home, and had begun the renovations with this carefully measured floor plan.
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Detail of the Governor’s Palace from the Frenchman’s Map (note L-shaped building). (Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.)
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Detail of Governor’s Palace from the Bodleian Plate (1740). Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
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A team of nine gathered with Duell on that late June morning: field superintendent Herbert Ragland, a foreman and 7 laborers supplied by the contracting firm of Todd & Brown, Inc. Armed with shovels, they started behind the Matty School, digging trenches in a location suggested by the Frenchman’s Map. Within the day, their efforts were rewarded with plaster and brick rubble, then sections of a brick drain. Tuesday brought an eighth worker, a few sections of intact wall, and some recognizable artifacts: a “front door key,” “some beautiful pottery and china fragments,” and a few bones (perhaps too hastily declared human by the former superintendent of the state mental institution). A breathless Western Union telegram announced the day’s findings to the Rockefeller office in New York. By Wednesday afternoon, a steadily growing work force exposed a section of the Palace’s cellar floor in a trench 7 feet below grade. The excavation was off to a successful start.
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Excavations behind the Matty School, which was demolished in 1930 and not restored. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
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At first glance, the presence of a “trained archaeologist” on the site seems to have had little impact; what would happen over the next four months on the Palace site typified the state of “archaeology” in 1930. The project was unabashedly architectural in its focus. Duell was employed by architects, whose goal was accurate reconstruction on original foundations, using authentic materials and correct finishes. Excavators were there to retrieve that evidence. Tools were large—mainly picks and shovels– and those who wielded them were employed for their ability to move dirt. To the modern archaeological ear, descriptions of the process are jarring. Ragland recalled that “In excavating the debris of brick, mortar and plaster, which was found in the entire basement, the debris was under cut as much as possible so that it fell away from and exposed the walls before they were struck by the picks of the workmen.” This was not delicate work.
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Palace cellar, early August 1930. One of the figures in a white suit is likely Prentice Duell. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
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Not surprisingly, progress was quick. An image captured in early August shows the Palace cellar nearly emptied of charred brick rubble. A procession of laborers push mounded wheelbarrows up a long ramp, at the bottom of which stand two nattily attired gentlemen (one of whom is likely Duell) looking suspiciously fresh in the heat of a Virginia summer.
By August 8th, Ragland reports that they had “practically finished excavation of the basement.” The foundation walls were found to be largely intact to a height of about 4 feet. Indeed, visitors to the cellars today may be able to detect the height at which the Palace’s original brick wall gives way to the newer brick used in reconstruction. The floors, paved with a combination of stone and brick, also survived to be incorporated into the reconstruction. One of the project’s most interesting revelations was that the back wall of the (1870) Matty school had been built directly on top of the Palace’s front wall, suggesting that the latter was visible (or at least accessible) when the school was constructed. This was not a happy coincidence for the Matty School; by July 22nd demolition was underway. With both the Palace cellar and a later ballroom addition now in the clear, the project’s architects compared the outline to Jefferson’s 1779 floor plan and found a match. The recovery effort had taken just over 5 weeks.
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Overall image of excavated Palace cellar. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
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But if excavation methods were quick and crude by today’s standards, we should acknowledge some moments of archaeological precocity. At a time when foundations were prized far above their contents, Duell designated twelve “excavation areas” within the Palace cellar, providing a rough provenience for recovered artifacts. Recognizing that, in a fire, building materials from upper floors would collapse into the spaces directly below, Duell began to draw order and pattern from the cellar’s jumbled debris. Slabs of black and white dressed marble recovered from the cellar’s south central end were interpreted as a checkered pattern marble floor in the first floor hall, above. Likewise, two halves of a marble mantel, carved with a deer motif, were scooped from the rubble in the south-east corner of the cellar, now mended and reinstalled above the first-floor front parlor fireplace in the reconstructed Palace.
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The entrance hall within the reconstructed Palace showing the marble floor. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
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Other artifacts found more general homes in the reconstruction. Eight complete delft tiles recovered from one of the Palace’s arched brick drains were incorporated into decorative fireplace surrounds: six manganese (purple) decorated tiles in the first floor “Little Middle Room” are survivals from the Palace, as are two cobalt (blue) decorated tiles in the northeast upstairs bedchamber. Despite more than a century underground, they defy detection in a surrounding field of antiques… although visitors are challenged to try!
Whether whole or broken, artifacts received more attention during the Palace excavation than they would for another three decades at Colonial Williamsburg. Ragland ended each week’s notes with a familiar refrain: “Wheeled all excavated material to rear of the lot.” Images reveal the resulting mountain of fill heaped in front of the Virginia Power Company. By late September (1930), as the pace of excavation began to slow, laborers were dispatched two or three at a time to screen this cellar fill, searching for overlooked evidence of the Palace’s design. Ultimately, more than 50 “fish crates” – rough wooden boxes measuring 15” x 28” x 15”—full of artifacts, were recovered from the Palace property. Though heavily biased toward architectural materials (chunks of marble, locks, hinges, hooks, and tile fragments), this collection marks a vast increase over the 2 or 3 crates retained from contemporary Williamsburg excavations. Fish crates were stacked in the first floor hall of the adjacent high school, ultimately finding their way into two first floor classrooms designated as temporary exhibit space. This impromptu museum would be undone when the excavation’s success resulted in the school’s demolition.
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Workers screen a mound of Palace fill in front of the Virginia Electric and Power Co. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Though Duell was the Palace excavation’s big name, it was Ragland, from nearby Richmond Virginia, who kept the project moving. It was he who kept records of each day’s progress, and of the growing number of unnamed workers employed. By the end of July, more than 60 men were engaged as excavation spilled out beyond the Palace cellar and onto the Palace grounds.
Many were searching for Palace outbuildings named in eighteenth century documents, but long vanished from the landscape. Trenches dug to the underlying “hardpan” successfully teased these brick foundations from the soil, but without consistentcollection of artifacts, it was difficult to understand each building’s use. Some foundations spoke for themselves: the smokehouse, for example, displayed a characteristic central fire-pit, filled with ash from smoking meats. Other identifications required deductive reasoning. The kitchen, known through records to have been constructed simultaneously with the Palace, was identified by the similarity of its brick. The laundry was identified as the foundation straddling the Palace’s arched brick drain…a useful feature for shunting wash water. And the Governor’s bannio, or bathhouse, was most certainly the exotic eight-sided foundation in the west courtyard. One “dependency”, the Governor’s ice house, survived intact—although by one schoolboy’s account, it was repurposed as a pirate’s cave early in the twentieth century.
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The excavated Palace smokehouse foundation. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
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Other survivals included earthen terraces, constructed during the tenure of Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood (ca. 1717), and recorded on the Frenchman’s Map. Though heavily eroded, these terraces were reestablished using archaeologically-discovered stair nosings as indicators of their original height. In general, however, garden features proved elusive to Duell and his team. Excavation techniques were primarily to blame. Though trenches were an efficient means of locating brick foundations (and in the case of the Palace, brick piers that framed the garden wall), they were highly unsuccessful in locating less solid features: planting beds and marl pathways separating the Palace’s formal gardens. Today, open-area excavation and the recovery of archaeobotanical samples would allow the Governor’s garden to bloom again. In 1930, however, excavators had reached the limit of methods at their disposal.
It was while searching for garden evidence that excavators made their most startling Palace discovery. Sometime during the middle of July, a worker trenching west of the Palace began to find bones. Swapping a putty knife for his shovel, he soon exposed a human skeleton. Over the next month that single burial became two burials… and eventually dozens. They were laid out in orderly rows, suggesting that each mounded grave had still been visible when the next was dug. Evidently, this cemetery was filled over a short period of time…but who were its occupants? Duell solicited the expertise of the Smithsonian Institution’s Dr. Ales Hrdlička, one of the most respected physical anthropologists of his time. According to a Western Union telegram, Dr. Hrdlička boarded the train from Washington to Williamsburg on August 19th, arriving at 3:22 p.m. By the time he re-boarded at noon the following day, Hrdlička had examined 66 burials prepared for his inspection. A dictated report renders his assessment of the age, sex, and physical condition of the 58 best-preserved specimens. Hrdlička’s pronouncements are often unexplained, and occasionally colorful: “[Burial number] 4. Male. Medium stature; sub-normal in strength. Abcess (sic) of jaw (bad tooth); both legs and thigh badly fractured probably causing death (probably run over); died in pain.”
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Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, a physical anthropologist from the Smithsonian, examining a skull recovered during excavations in the West garden of the Governor’s Palace. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
By summer’s end, 158 burials were laid out in the Palace’s west garden. Of these, 156 were identified as male and 2 as female, nearly all between the ages of 25 and 35. The gender disparity and their youth caused Duell to observe that “these individuals were not the victims of an epidemic. In such a case, a fair cross-section of the population would be represented; here they are all young people and of an age which is the least susceptible to epidemic of any kind.” This appeared to be a military population. Though it would take months to piece together supporting evidence from associated artifacts and documentary sources, the cemetery was eventually linked to those final days of the Revolutionary War, when the vacated Palace was repurposed as that military hospital described in the Charleston Royal Gazette. The 158 bodies interred in the west garden were casualties of the Battle of Yorktown, disease, or the treatment thereof.
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Drawing illustrating the archaeological survey of the Revolutionary War Cemetery. Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
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Following the 1930 excavation, the bodies of soldiers (and perhaps two nurses) discovered in the Palace yard were reburied. We have no record of who they might be, though a list of the wounded treated at the Palace may surface one day. For the time being, the Palace cemetery keeps a low profile. Unsuspecting visitors might overlook the grassy lawn nestled between the Palace gardens and the canal, or the marble plaque that describes what was discovered here in 1930.
By September, work at the Palace was winding down. Ragland’s daily notes mention screening, photography, and mapping. The labor force dwindled from 17 men, to 4, and then 3. Some days Ragland simply indicated “No work done.” While there was a short burst of digging in 1931 after a street closure opened new parts of the Palace grounds, the Governor’s Palace excavation was largely complete within 4 months. During that time, workers covered an area measuring nearly 6 acres. Ragland wrote the final, 10 page report.
And so what became of the Egyptologist? Duell left Williamsburg in October of 1930, bound for Egypt and the Sakkarah Expedition. An October departure was always part of Duell’s plan, and while he proposed an annual, 5-month return to Williamsburg, the Sakkarah expedition would consume the next five years of his life. He went on to have an illustrious career. In 1938 he published the monumental volume “Mastaba of Mereruka” describing and illustrating that project’s finds. He can be found in Who Was Who in Egyptology, and Who Was Who in America. He held an appointment as associate professor of ancient Mediterranean art at the University of Chicago….but he never returned to Williamsburg.
In December of 1931, a different set of laborers arrived on the site of the Governor’s Palace to begin rebuilding. It was completed in April of 1934, and has now survived longer as a reconstruction than it stood in its original form. Are there questions that were left unanswered by the 1930 excavation? Of course. Archaeology’s goals and techniques have changed radically since 1930, making new questions inevitable. A large “L-shaped” building depicted on the Frenchman’s Map remains a mystery. Workers were so puzzled by what they found there in 1930 that the building was never reconstructed. We have some ideas….but that’s a dig for another day.
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Cover Photo, Top Left: View of the reconstructed Governor’s Palace. Humberto Moreno, Wikimedia Commons
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.
Carolyn E. Boyd is the Executive Director and co-founder of SHUMLA, an archeological research and educational nonprofit corporation. She serves as Adjunct Professor at Texas State University and as a Research Fellow at the Center for Arts and Symbolism of the Ancient Americas in San Marcos, Texas and the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory in Austin. Boyd received her doctorate in archeology from Texas A&M University based on her analysis of the 4,000 year-old rock art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas and northern Mexico. Her expanded dissertation, Rock Art of the Lower Pecos, was published in 2003 by Texas A&M University Press and is considered an important contribution on rock art analysis and interpretation. She has been published in Antiquity, Latin American Antiquity, Revista Iberoamericana de Lingüística, and has contributed chapters in several edited volumes. Boyd teaches Field Methods in Rock Art, a three-week field school offered each May through Texas State University, gives numerous lectures around the country and abroad, serves on graduate committees, and is the Principal Investigator for the Lower Pecos Border Canyonlands Archeological Project.
“Absolutely incredible” is a phrase repeated time and again as people gaze in awe at the majestic murals in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands. Whether one is an archeologist, lawyer, accountant, teacher or student, these ancient paintings elicit a similar response. Among rock art scholars, the complexity and compositional intricacies of Lower Pecos rock art are considered unrivaled on the global stage. Renowned French archaeologist Dr. Jean Clottes says, “It is my considered opinion—after having seen rock art on all the continents—the Pecos River rock art is second to none and ranks among the top bodies of rock art anywhere in the world.” The intrinsic value of the artistic record left behind by hunters and gatherers of the Lower Pecos thousands of years ago is incalculable.
The rough, rocky, arid country referred to as the Lower Pecos Canyonlands is centered upon the confluence of the Pecos River with the Rio Grande. This region extends approximately 100 miles north and south of the United States–Mexico border, and approximately 50 miles east and west of the confluence. The landscape is incised by deep, narrow canyons that slice through masses of grayish white limestone rock, remnants of a huge inland sea that covered the region during the Cretaceous period 100 million years ago. Wind and water erosion acting on the limestone substrate produced hundreds of rockshelters that provided refuge for prehistoric inhabitants. Groups of hunters and gatherers periodically occupied the rockshelters throughout the Holocene, leaving behind one of the best-preserved and longest records of Native American lifeways—11,000 years ago to the time of European contact. This is considered one of the most significant archaeological regions in the world.
Map of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands. (Map courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
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Excavation of dry rockshelter deposits has yielded a wide assemblage of artifacts, such as wood and bone tools, matting, basketry, snares and the accumulated detritus of everyday living. Occasionally stone pipes and calcite crystals are found along with abundant chipped stone tools and grinding stones. Mobiliary art in the form of small painted pebbles and other painted objects such as wood, bone and snail shells are not uncommon in the dry shelters as are engraved stone plaquettes and freshwater mussel shells. Other artifacts include feather plumes, rasping sticks, fire-starting kits and medicinal and hallucinogenic plants such as peyote and datura.
Throughout prehistory, inhabitants of the Lower Pecos lived in small, mobile groups often referred to as bands. It isn’t unusual for people to think of these prehistoric hunters and gatherers as being vastly different from us, and in some ways they certainly were. They didn’t have agriculture, houses with central air and heat, cars, or the internet. They were, however, more like us than they were different. These were anatomically modern humans with the same cognitive capacity and capabilities as you and I today. They had the same brain that put a man on the moon. And, yes, they had a language—likely one with a vocabulary far richer than we can ever imagine to describe life, death, the land and the heavens. That they were socially well organized and intellectually capable is amply demonstrated in the archeological record, and the most compelling evidence comes from the elaborate, polychromatic murals painted on canyon and rockshelter walls (See the gallery at the end of this article).
The Painted Landscape
Pictographs are the most abundant form of rock art found in the Lower Pecos. These polychromatic paintings and drawings are made with mineral pigments and other natural ingredients, such as animal fat and plant juices. The paintings were applied to the rock surface using brushes made from animal hair, plant fibers, feathers, or fingers. Dry-applied pictographs are drawn on rock surfaces using pigment crayons or charcoal. Pictographs in the Lower Pecos have been categorized into five styles or classifications in a chronological sequence—Historic, Red Monochrome, Bold Line Geometric, Red Linear, and Pecos River.
Historic Period Rock Art
From northern Mexico to the canyons of Utah, artists of the Historic period captured initial contact with European culture in pictographic form. The rock art produced during this period demonstrated a preoccupation with domesticated animals, such as horses and cattle, churches, and the clothing and accoutrements of Spaniards. With the arrival of the Plains Indians into the region, such as the Apache, Kiowa, and Comanche, pictographs were executed in their Ceremonial and Early Biographical styles. Common themes include bison hunting, individual and group combat, weaponry, thunderbirds, dancing, horses, and figures with elaborate headdresses.
Red Monochrome Style
The Red Monochrome style began to be produced in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands sometime around 900 A.D. It is characterized by life-size images of humans and animals painted in varying shades of red. Rigid, human forms are solidly painted and portrayed frontally with their arms bent at the elbow, forearms raised, and legs apart. Red Monochrome animals are typically painted in profile and include realistic depictions of mountain lions, deer, turkeys, rabbits, dogs, and aquatic life, such as turtles and catfish. One of the most distinguishing characteristics of the Red Monochrome style is the portrayal of bows and arrows, an attribute that reinforces the placement of this style within the Late Prehistoric.
Bold Line Geometric
The least represented of the pictograph styles is referred to as Bold Line Geometric. It is characterized by bold, geometric designs, including zigzag, lattice, and herringbone patterns. Small human- and insect-like forms painted in deep red are the only figures that are not the characteristic geometric forms. It has been tentatively dated to the Late Prehistoric.
Red Linear Style
Red Linear style is typically characterized by animated, small, fine-lined figures of animals and humans. Most are only about 2 to 4 inches in length; some are as small as one-half inch. Their diminutive size has resulted in an under-appreciation for these intriguing paintings, as well as an under-estimation of the number of sites containing them.
There is tremendous diversity within the corpus of Red Linear imagery. Although some figures are rigid and static, others are quite fluid, evoking a sense of movement as humans engage in group activities, such as dancing, hunting, and possibly conflict. In addition to humans, pictographic elements include geometrics and animals, such as deer, canines, and rabbits. Both humans and animals are portrayed holding atlatls and fending sticks.
This style was believed to have been produced during the Late Archaic around 1,280 years ago after the Pecos River style, but prior to the Red Monochrome. Recently, however, we have identified numerous examples of Pecos River style rock art superimposing Red Linear style pictographs.
Pecos River Style
The vast majority of the rock art in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands, and that which sets it apart from all other rock art in the world, is referred to as Pecos River style. It is the most abundant, complex, and sophisticated of the regional rock art styles. In the early 1990s, chemists began collecting paint samples from seriously deteriorated Pecos River paintings for experimental radiocarbon dating. The dates obtained range from 4200±90 to 2750±50 RCYBP (radiocarbon years before present). If accurate, the 4200 year-old painting is the oldest dated pictograph in North America. In calendar years, this translates to approximately 2700 BCE.
Exquisite in detail and masterful in execution, the Pecos River style murals document myths, histories, and rituals of people living in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands thousands of years ago. They represent the oldest known “books” in North America. Artists of these paintings used an array of earth colors to create elaborate murals that are impressive in the level of skill required to produce them, as well as sheer size and complexity. Some of the panels are massive, spanning over 100 feet in length and 30 feet in height—dimensions requiring significant planning and construction of scaffolding and ladders. Other panels are quite small, tucked away in secluded alcoves high above the canyon floor.
It was long believed that these murals represented numerous painting episodes executed by different artists over hundreds or even thousands of years. Although over-painting exists, through detailed analysis of these panels, we now know that most are not a random collection of images painted over the course of time, but rather well-ordered compositions, planned arrangements of elements in a work of art to communicate an idea. Lower Pecos artists used pigment crayons or pieces of ochre to sketch out and organize the elements of their compositions. Vestiges of these preliminary sketches still can be seen today.
The artistic merit and compositional quality of the panels were noted by the early pioneers in Lower Pecos rock art recording. Forrest Kirkland observed that the rock art “communicates a sense of color harmony unsurpassed by painters of our own time” and arranged so perfectly on the wall that “to move a single important element would seriously injure their delicate balance and detract from their artistic merit.”
The geographic boundaries of the Pecos River style, although not clearly defined, appear to center on the confluence of the Pecos River with the Rio Grande and extend about 100 miles in all directions. In Texas, most are located along the Pecos, Devils, and Rio Grande canyons and their tributary systems. Sites in Coahuila, Mexico, are also predominantly confined to well-watered canyons and their tributaries.
Pictographic elements included in the Pecos River style murals include anthropomorphs or human-like figures, animals, a wide range of geometric imagery, and enigmatic, fantastic creatures that are not identifiable as human or animal. Anthropomorphs are by far the most frequently depicted element. Although these figures share many common characteristics, such as elongated, rectangular bodies with disproportionally short arms and legs, there is an incredible amount of diversity within what is called “Pecos River style anthropomorphs.”
Although most anthropomorphs range in size between 3 to 7 feet, some are monumental, towering over 20 feet in height. Others are pocket-sized; the smallest recorded Pecos River style anthropomorph is only 3 inches tall. These fascinating figures are often finely executed in red, yellow, black, and white. Yet, many are painted in only one color and far less elaborate. Not only is there variability in the form and color of these figures, but also in the accoutrements and paraphernalia depicted with them. Headdresses of varying types, clusters of feathers at the waist, and wrist or elbow tassels often adorn these human-like figures. Generally the artists portray anthropomorphs wielding paraphernalia, such as atlatls, spears, and staffs. The atlatl and spear are usually linked to the right hand of the figure; feathered darts, rabbit sticks, and staffs are linked to the left hand. But sometimes none of these items are present or they are associated with the opposite hand.
Animals are portrayed in the Pecos River style paintings. Deer and felines are the most common; birds and canines to a lesser degree. Some imagery resembles insects, such as caterpillars, dragonflies, and moths or butterflies. Sinuous, snake-like figures are also portrayed in the rock art.
Understanding the Meaning and Process
Why did artists thousands of years ago spend time, energy, and resources in the production of these enigmatic panels?
Beginning in the 1950s, researchers suggested that perhaps the art represented a hunting cult or medicine society. Shortly after, the elaborately portrayed anthropomorphic figures were identified as shamans, the intermediaries between the human and spirit world. It wasn’t long before the term “shaman” became a catchall for all Pecos River anthropomorphs. By the late 1980s, it was generally accepted that any attempt to interpret Pecos River rock art, beyond shamanism, would be at best speculative. The obstacles faced by archaeologists attempting to interpret the art seemed almost insurmountable. The mantra heard time and again was that “the meaning of the art was lost with the people who produced it.”
Patterns………..
Although the artists of the Lower Pecos are gone, their myths and belief systems have endured in the shared symbolic language of the native peoples living today. Actors and details may change, but basic story lines and concepts persist. This shared symbolic world is exemplified in the ancient rock art of the Lower Pecos, and the key to unlocking these visual texts is not lost. Just as forensic detectives look for patterns to solve crimes and cryptologists look for patterns to break secret codes, archeologists look for patterns to interpret rock art. We begin by documenting the rock art panel in detail, capturing each pictographic element, the attributes of that element, and its contextual relationship to other imagery in the panel. This allows us to identify variation and consistency in artistic styles, recurring patterns, and anomalies in the art.
One of the most ubiquitous patterns we have identified combines antlered anthropomorphs with dots on the tips of their antler tines; spear-impaled deer, and dots or circles that also are impaled. To understand the meaning of this pattern, we compared patterns in the rock art with similar patterns in myths and iconographies of many Mesoamerican groups. Almost immediately we found notable parallels with the myths of the Huichol Indians of Mexico, as well as other Uto-Aztecan speaking peoples. This pattern led us to the identification of not only ritual practices involving the use of the sacred peyote cactus, but to mythological characters and deities associated with the origins of peyote and the birth of the Sun. Ultimately, we were led to identifying one of the most famous murals in the region—White Shaman Shelter—as a pictorial creation narrative, perhaps the oldest in North America. But how could we know that this 24-foot-long rock art panel was painted as a single composition?
…………and Process
Patterns provide clues to “what” the rock art means. But to get at the “how” requires an examination of the technical history of a rock art panel—how the mural was painted. Through documentation and analysis of the sequential ordering of motifs, we have begun to gain insights into deeper layers of meaning—the artistic and cognitive processes that led to the creation of the art.
Our most recent discoveries about the operational sequence of the art was truly groundbreaking and, frankly, mind-boggling. We began producing layered, digital illustrations of Pecos River style murals using Adobe Photoshop and a Wacom Cintiq Interactive Pen Display. Using a digitizing stylus directly on the Cintiq screen, we digitally applied the paint layer by layer to reproduce the original painting sequence. The challenge, however, was identifying the paint layers. Hand lenses, macro photography, and magnifiers proved inadequate. We needed greater magnification, and we needed to be able to photograph what we were seeing at that level of magnification. I shared our frustration with a colleague, Mark Willis, who has an uncanny ability to find cost effective solutions to technological problems. Sure enough, this was no exception. He introduced us to the Dino-Lite Pro handheld digital microscope with 20X to 220X magnification.
With this tool we returned to the field to capture digital images of microscopic areas within Pecos River murals. And much to our surprise and delight, we were able to confidently and objectively identify painting sequences for almost all figures in the panels. The results were startling. At the sites studied thus far, we could see that the mural artists painted all black imagery first, followed by red, then yellow, then white. Strict rules governed the order in which the paint was applied. Black superimposed black. Red superimposed black. Yellow superimposed red and black, while white superimposed all colors. Identifying the order in which the artist applied paint, color-by-color, figure-by-figure, provided irrefutable evidence that the murals analyzed were indeed single compositions, pictorial narratives.
As an artist and an archaeologist, I have long recognized the extraordinary complexity of Pecos River style rock art. When I first began studying the rock art of the Lower Pecos 20 years ago, my goal was to see if it was even possible to talk about its “meaning” in a meaningful context. However, I have come to realize that the true significance of the art does not exist independently of its organizing structure. Our greatest challenge is not in deciphering the meaning of rock art; it is in recognizing the overriding principles that provided the framework for understanding its meaning and governing its production.
Our analysis confirmed that the murals in many cases, if not all, were planned compositions with rules governing not only the portrayal of symbolic forms, but also the sequencing of colors. Complex images painted in black, red, yellow, and white were woven together to form intricate pictorial narratives. As with the Mesoamerican codices, everything has inherent meaning. Nothing is arbitrary or random, including the order in which the paint is applied. That inherent meaning is part of a larger structural meaning directly relating to and arising out of an earlier culture and fits into a broader continuum that persisted into later cultures in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. It is a continuum that has led to our interpretation of the murals as visual narratives detailing stories of creation, the birth of the sun and beginning of time.
For those interested in learning more about the Lower Pecos story, a new publication entitled Painters in Prehistory: Archaeology and Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands, edited by Harry J. Shafer, can be obtained at http://tupress.org/books/painters-in-prehistory.
Recommended Reading
Boyd, C. E. 2003 Rock Art of the Lower Pecos. Texas A&M University Press, College Station.
Kirkland, F. and W. W. Newcomb 1967 The Rock Art of Texas Indians. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Shafer, H. J. 1986 Ancient Texans. Texas Monthly Press, Austin.
Painters in Prehistory: Archaeology and Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands, 2013 edited by Harry J. Shafer. Trinity University Press, San Antonio.
Zintgraff, J., and S. A. Turpin 1991 Pecos River Rock Art: A Photographic Essay. Sandy McPherson Publishing Company, San Antonio, Texas.
In 1849, Captain S.G. French reported seeing Indian paintings near the mouth of the Pecos River, but it was not until the 1930s that serious efforts at recording and studying the art of the region began. These early recording efforts were undertaken by truly remarkable individuals. In 1931, two adventurous women, Emma Gutzeit and Mary Virginia Carson from the Witte Museum in San Antonio, recorded 18 rock art sites, producing watercolor renderings of what they saw.
A few years later, Kirkland, a commercial draftsman, and his wife, Lula, began producing detailed and incredibly accurate watercolor renderings of the major sites in Texas. It was the realization that many of the paintings were being “mutilated and destroyed” that prompted the couple to begin this massive undertaking. Before Kirkland’s untimely death in 1942, he managed to copy 43 rock art panels in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands. Twenty-five years after Kirkland’s death, W. W. Newcomb wrote The Rock Art of Texas Indians, showcasing Kirkland’s beautiful illustrations and acknowledging the contribution made by Kirkland: “He had attempted what no one else had dared, and he had succeeded beyond the dreams of any. He had copied most of the rock art then known in Texas. His heroic, self-imposed task was completed.”
Archaeologist and author A. T. Jackson also documented rock art sites in Texas in the 1930s. He referred to the Lower Pecos as the “premier pictograph area of the state.” Recognizing the incredible value of these paintings, he launched an intensive rock art documentation project. In his book,The Picture Writing of Texas Indians, he wrote “. . . the rapid destruction of these first works of art and specimens of early writing in Texas creates a crying need for action. . .” to document and preserve the art for future generations.
Recent Efforts
Recognizing the importance of the region and its resources, the Witte Museum of San Antonio, Texas initiated an interdisciplinary effort to study and publicize prehistoric art of the Lower Pecos region in the early 1980s. Drawing on the skills of not only archaeologists, but archaeobotanists, art historians, and social anthropologists, the Witte effort sought to interpret the material culture and investigate the lifestyle of the prehistoric hunter-gatherer inhabitants of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands. Their endeavors resulted in the “Ancient Texans” exhibit at the Museum and the publication of Ancient Texans: Rock Art and Lifeways along the Lower Pecos by Harry Shafer and Jim Zintgraff. It also led to a significant increase in public awareness of prehistoric art and a greater understanding of the hunting-gathering lifeways of the people who produced the art. Out of this effort came the creation of the Rock Art Foundation to promote and preserve the region’s rock art. The Witte’s commitment to stewardship of the region and its resources is ongoing. Painters in Prehistory: Archaeology and Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands, edited by Harry Shafer, was recently published in association with the Witte Museum and will serve as the text accompanying their new Lower Pecos exhibition.
Two significant documentation projects also have been launched. A group of dedicated volunteers with The Texas Archeological Society formed a Rock Art Recording Task Force to document rock art sites across Texas. And, for more than a decade, Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center (www.shumla.org), a nonprofit organization located in the Lower Pecos, has been engaged in the most intensive rock art recording project undertaken in the region, the Lower Pecos Rock Art Preservation Initiative. The goal of this project, for which I am the Principal Investigator, is to create a permanent visual and textual archive for present and future generations and to promote rock art preservation through education.
In 1989, my first efforts to document the murals began with the simple tools of an artist. Now, after years of intensive field work with my colleagues at Shumla, I have incorporated into our investigations 3D laser mapping, SfM photography, portable X-ray fluorescence, Dino-Lite handheld microscopes, robotic total data stations, and Wacom Cintiq Interactive Pen Displays. As new technologies become available, we return to sites to capture more data, and each visit is rewarded with new discoveries.
Carolyn Boyd
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GALLERY
ROCK ART OF THE LOWER PECOS CANYONLANDS
Above: The panel at Rattlesnake Canyon reveals the complexity of Pecos River style images and the challenges of recording and interpretation. (Photograph courtesy of Jean Clottes)
Large rock shelters such as this one above at Cedar Springs provided both refuge and limestone canvases for documenting pictographic narratives. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
Above: Eagle Nest Canyon in Langtry, Texas. (Photograph courtesy of Nataliya Chemayeva.)
Above and below: Parida Cave is located along the Rio Grande and houses deeply stratified deposits, as well as Pecos River style rock art. In the late 1800s this site was referred to as Parida Cave Station and served as a railroad stop for passengers traveling across the country on the Southern Pacific Railroad. Although now only accessible by boat, once inside the shelter’s expansive interior visitors can take advantage of more than 300 feet of designated trails. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
Halo Shelter is located in tributary canyon of the Devils River. Pecos River style pictographs painted in red, yellow, black, and white span almost 100 feet along the wall of this shelter. This photograph represents the best preserved portion of the mural. (Photograph courtesy of Jean Clottes).
Vaquero Shelter is located in Seminole Canyon State Park and contains wonderful examples of Historic Period rock art. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
Anthropomorphs standing with their arms in a “stick ‘em up” position are characteristic of Red Monochrome paintings. This anthropomorph is wearing a single feather headdress and is wielding a recurved bow. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
DStretch, which uses decorrelation stretch, significantly enhances photographs of badly faded images. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
Bold Line Geometric imagery is characterized by bold geometric lines forming zigzag patterns and small human and insect-like figures, as shown here from Parida Cave along the Rio Grande. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
Fluidly painted, tiny Red Linear style figures convey a sense of movement and ceremony in this panel located in Presa Canyon. Each figure in this photograph is less than 5 inches tall. Males are portrayed with an erect phallus and women are sometimes portrayed wearing “skirts.” (Photograph courtesy of Rupestrian Cyberservices).
Most Pecos River style imagery is well beyond reach of the shelter floor. Use of scaffolding to paint the murals demonstrates a significant investment by ancient artists in time, effort and resources. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
This finely executed yellow and red Pecos River style anthropomorph from Halo Shelter is portrayed with a feather headdress and is wielding a staff. The small halo-like arch located just above the head of this figure is characteristic of many anthropomorphs at this site. Three vertical lines located on the forehead of the figure may represent tattooing. Note the claw- or pincher-like hands. Just below and to the right of this figure is an antlered anthropomorph with black dots on its antler tines. This is a recurring motif in Pecos River rock art. (Photograph courtesy of Jean Clottes).
Pecos River style rock art contains a vast array of enigmatic imagery. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
At almost 20 feet in height, this Pecos River style anthropomorph is one of the tallest figures in the Lower Pecos. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
This large Pecos River style anthropomorph with a U-shaped head stands more than 10 feet in height and is portrayed with various accoutrements. Associated with its right hand is an atlatl and spear and with its left hand spears, staff, and a datura power bundle. The right wrist is depicted with some type of adornment and suspended from the left elbow is something resembling a pouch. At its mid-section are waist tassels and at the hip are a cluster of possible feathers. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
White Pecos River style anthropomorphic figures are striking and this is no exception. It has a bird-like head and wrist adornment. Red lines are interspersed within the white body and a wide black band runs vertically down its center. This figure is especially interesting because it is holding two atlatls in its right hand and two staffs in its left.(Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
Halo Shelter houses an unusual two-legged Pecos River style feline with piloerection (hair standing on end). The wavy lines coming out of its mouth may represent speech or breath. The solid red line being emitted out of its nose may represent blood or a stream of mucous, both of which have been reported as a potential side-effect of trance states induced through extreme physical exertion or the use of some hallucinogenic plants. (Photograph courtesy of Jean Clottes).
The antler tines of many antlered anthropomorphs found in Pecos River style rock art are tipped with black dots. The black dots represent the sacramental plant, peyote. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
Illustration of a Huichol yarn painting portraying the birth of peyote from the antlers and body of the Great Deer in Wirikúta. In Huichol religion, peyote and deer are an inseparable sacred symbol. Yarn painting by Chavelo González de la Cruz. (Illustration by Carolyn Boyd, courtesy of Texas A&M University Press).
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3D photographic model produced using Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry of the mural at White Shaman Shelter. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
Using a Dino-Lite handheld digital microscope, Boyd photographs a small section of the White Shaman mural to determine the order in which the paint was applied. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
In this microscopic photograph of a pea-sized section of the mural, the yellow paint can be seen overlying both the red and black paint and the red is over the black. This painting sequence held true throughout the entire mural. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
The White Shaman illustration was produced digitally using Adobe Photoshop on a Wacom Cintiq Interactive Pen Display. A separate layer was created in Photoshop for each figure and each color. In other words, if a figure is composed of three colors, it was reproduced according to its original painting sequence in three separate layers. The final rendering shown here is the combination of over 200 digital layers. (Illustration by Carolyn Boyd, courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center)
A winged, antlered anthropomorph with dots attached to its antler tines is part of a large, polychromatic composition at Fate Bell Shelter in Seminole Canyon State Park. (Photograph courtesy of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center).
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Editor’s Note
Did you like this article? You may be interested in reading more about the White Shaman mural in Carolyn Boyd’s award-winning book, The White Shaman Mural.
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It was an almost desperate race against time. On one side was the ocean, its relentless incoming and outgoing tides beating and constantly reshaping the beach, as any ocean would do. On the opposite side were the overlying cliffs, the erosion of which through time helped to expose a series of small hollows, what appeared to be human footprints, on an ancient beach surface dated hundreds of thousands of years into the past. This team of scientists knew they had only a short window of time to observe and record them before the elements erased the hollows back into oblivion.
“When we first saw them, we were in a state of initial disbelief, but once we’d ruled out all the other possibilities we were utterly amazed that, first, they survived, and second, that we happened to be there during the few days that they were exposed,” said Nick Ashton, a curator with the British Museum for over 25 years. Ashton is also the Director of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project (AHOB) funded by the Leverhulme Trust. He has been directing the oceanside Happisburgh Paleolithic excavations, where these footprint finds were located. The site has yielded evidence of a human presence as far back as 800,000 years ago, and the footprints tell a story of humans who may have walked this place even more anciently.
But Ashton and his team faced a serious challenge. Their task to initially examine and document them could only be measured in a few weeks, if not days.
“The first problem was mobilizing a team to record them,” said Ashton. “But Sarah Duffy from York University stepped into the breach, coming down at short notice to record them using multi-image photogrammetry.” Duffy is an archaeologist with specialized expertise in digital imaging techniques as they apply to archaeology.
“The weather was foul,” he added. “We couldn’t get down to the beach until just after 5 pm just as it started to lash with rain. Heavy seas meant that there were only 3-4 hours in which to record them, but first we had to remove the beach sand that had accumulated since the last tide and remove the excess water from the hollows. As Sarah started the recording we were continually using sponges to remove the persistent rain-water. By this time the light was fading, despite being May and I really had little faith in the technique working. We eventually left the beach cold, wet and somewhat demoralized. However, the results were stunning.”
Above and below: Area A (which includes the hollows/footprints) at Happisburgh from cliff top looking south. (Photo: Martin Bates).
The imaging showed that the hollows were elongated, like the shape of a foot, and the majority of them fell within the range previously determined through paleoanthropological research as juvenile to adult hominin foot sizes. “In many cases, the arch and front/ back of the foot can be identified and in one case the impression of toes can be seen,” write Ashton and colleagues in their more recent research report.*
Moreover, further study indicated that they were dealing not with just one individual, but a group of perhaps five individuals of mixed ages — perhaps an adult and several children. And whoever they were, they were apparently moving in a southerly direction along mudflats of an ancient estuary of a tidally-influenced river.
But perhaps the biggest find had to do with age. The ancient laminated silt layers in which the footprints were found were directly associated with ancient laminated silt layers and lag gravels that had already been dated nearby. Artifacts, flora and fauna found within those layers helped to pinpoint the age range.
“An artefact assemblage has been recovered from these lag gravels, consisting of flint flakes, flake tools and cores. The sediments also contain a rich assemblage of fauna and flora which suggest that the archaeological evidence can be attributed to the later part of an interglacial. This interglacial is dated on the basis of biostratigraphical and palaeomagnetic evidence to the latter part of the Early Pleistocene, perhaps MIS 21 or MIS 25,” reported Ashton and colleagues.*
In other words, the footprints, according to Ashton and his research team, are dated to between ca. 1 and 0.78 million years ago.
The finding was astounding. This meant that this was the oldest known hominin footprint surface outside of Africa. It pushedthe record of human occupation of northern Europe back by at least 350,000 years.
The footprints have become a major a milestone in a series of discoveries beginning in 2000 at this location, named after the nearby village of Happisburgh on the coast of eastern England.
“The first evidence of Palaeolithic archaeology was a handaxe found by a local person walking their dog (Mike Chambers),” said Ashton. “Although this dates to 500,000 years ago, it led to further fieldwork and the discovery of ‘Site 3’ dating to 800,000 years old and subsequently the footprints.”
Happisburgh has been found to feature a remarkable concentration of Early Stone Age, or Lower Palaeolithic, sites that were buried in time under glacial sediments and subsequently exposed in time as a result of coastal erosion. Thus far, excavations have revealed numerous artifacts as well as butchered large mammal bones and other biological remains across five identified sites, tell-tale signs of a human presence during a cool climatic period around 500,000 years ago and earlier. At “Site 3”, the location of the recently discovered footprints, about 80 stone tools have been uncovered during large scale excavations from 2005 to 2010. Studies have shown that this area was once the location of an ancient river channel. The river was the ancestral river of the current Thames which, hundreds of thousands of years ago, flowed into the North Sea 150 kilometres north of its present day estuary.
Research on the plant and animal remains recovered from the site have afforded archaeologists and other scientists the opportunity to reconstruct the climate and environment of the area as it existed more than half a million years ago, at the time the artifact-bearing sediments were deposited. They found that these early humans occupied the area during a cooling period when a conifer woodland was predominant:
From palynological analysis of adjoining sediments, the local vegetation consisted of a mosaic of open coniferous forest of pine (Pinus), spruce (Picea), with some birch (Betula). Alder (Alnus) was growing in wetter areas and there were patches of heath and grassland. This vegetation is characteristic of the cooler climate typically found at the beginning or end of an interglacial or during an interstadial period….*
To date, no human fossil bones have been excavated at Site 3 or any of the other four sites. But now, analysis of the footprints, combined with current knowledge about early human occupation of Europe, are providing some clues about who these people were and how they might fit into the developing landscape of the first humans in the European geographic arena.
The researchers measured a total of 152 hollows/footprints, indicating a preponderance of elongated forms and shapes, form features and measurements that suggested they were made by perhaps 5 individual humans of varying size and age. Foot size yielded estimates of height. Most significantly, the dimensions seem to fit neatly into the range identified through previous studies and archaeological investigations as attributed to an early human form that is known to have occupied Europe during the Middle Pleistocene.
“Overall the estimated foot size, foot area and stature of the Happisburgh hominins correspond with the estimates for Homoantecessor,” report Ashton, et.al.*
Homo antecessor (or H. antecessor) — the name derives from landmark human fossil discoveries made at the archaeological cave sites of Gran Dolina and Sima del Elefante at the Sierra de Atapuerca mountain in northern Spain. There, archaeologists Eudald Carbonell, Juan Luis Arsuaga and J. M. Bermúdez de Castro discovered fossil evidence of an extinct human species that lived between 800,000 to 1.2 million years ago. Carbonell and his colleagues estimate that the adult H. antecessor stood about 1.6-1.8 m (5½-6 feet) tall, similar to the recent estimates from Happisburgh (ca. 0.93 for the juvenile and 1.73 m for the adult), and weighed roughly 90 kg (200 pounds). Their brain sizes are estimated to be 1,000–1,150 cm³, smaller than the 1,350 cm³ average for modern humans. But because the fossil evidence is comparatively scarce, little else is known about the physiology of this ancient human species. To date, these sites are the only locations where fossilized remains of the species have been found, but the finds have interjected a new chapter in the developing picture of human evolution and the advent of early humans (hominins) on the European subcontinent.
So now, Happisburgh adds yet another discovery to the mix: H. antecessor, or something like it, occupied the northern parts of Europe, or at least the region today known as the UK, as much as 1 million years ago.
Walking the Beach
The evidence thus far could present an intriguing, albeit incomplete picture of what could be going on in this place so long ago. Informed by the findings and what he already knows about the prehistory of the area and the interdisciplinary science thus far applied to human beginnings in this part of the world, Ashton paints a hypothetical picture:
“We appear to be dealing with a small family group walking along the muddy fringes of an estuary perhaps 10 to 15 miles from the coast. It would be nice to imagine that they’re pausing in their walk to collect shell fish, crabs and possibly seaweed. Around would have been the grassy floodplain, grazed by deer, horse and bison together with more exotic animals such as rhino, hippo and elephant. In the distance coniferous forest would have dominated the surrounding hills.”
With more work, this picture could become much larger with greater detail. But time is of the essence. As Ashton reports:
The rarity of such evidence is equalled only by its fragility at Happisburgh, where severe coastal erosion is both revealing and rapidly destroying sites that are of international significance. The pre-glacial succession around Happisburgh has now revealed several archaeological locations of Early Pleistocene and early Middle Pleistocene age with evidence of flint artefacts, cut-marked bones and footprints. Importantly, the sites are associated with a rich environmental record of flora and fauna allowing detailed reconstructions of the human habitats and the potential for preservation of organic artefacts. Continuing erosion of the coastline will reveal further exposures of the HHF and new sites, which promise to transform our understanding of the earliest human occupation of northern latitudes.*
“We’ll be continuing to work in the area as new information is revealed every time we visit,” he says. “Over the years we have built up a team of local people who walk the beaches on a far more regular basis and are excellent at reporting back any new discoveries, whether these be new sediments, artifacts or fossil bones.”
Dr Nick Ashton, British Museum at the Happisburgh site. Dr Ashton is the Co-Director of the Happisburgh Project and the British Museum’s curator of the Palaeolithic collections. Photo: Happisburgh Project
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