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It seems the mastodons had already left the scene by the time early Americans arrived on the ancient Beringia landmass about 13,000 – 14,000 years ago. A re-dating of mastodon bones reveals that the extinct mammals, related to the modern day elephant, disappeared from the area during a glacial period more than 50,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Existing age estimates of American mastodon fossils indicate that these extinct relatives of elephants lived in the Arctic and Subarctic when the area was covered by ice caps—a chronology that is at odds with what scientists know about the massive animals’ preferred habitat: forests and wetlands abundant with leafy food. In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers is revising fossil age estimates based on new radiocarbon dates and suggesting that the Arctic and Subarctic were only temporary homes to mastodons when the climate was warm. The new findings also indicate that mastodons suffered local extinction several tens of millennia before either human colonization–the earliest estimate of which is between 13,000 and 14,000 years ago–or the onset of climate changes at the end of the ice age about 10,000 years ago, when they were among 70 species of mammals to disappear in North America.

“Scientists have been trying to piece together information on these extinctions for decades,” said Ross MacPhee, a curator in the Department of Mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History and a co-author of the paper. “Was it the result of over-hunting by early people in North America? Was it the rapid global warming at the end of the ice age? Did all of these big mammals go out in one dramatic die-off, or were they paced over time and due to a complex set of factors?”

Over the course of the late Pleistocene, between about 10,000 and 125,000 years ago, the American mastodon (Mammut americanum) became widespread and occupied many parts of continental North America as well as peripheral locations like the tropics of Honduras and the Arctic coast of Alaska. Mastodons were browsing specialists that relied on woody plants and lived in coniferous or mixed woodlands with lowland swamps.

“Mastodon teeth were effective at stripping and crushing twigs, leaves, and stems from shrubs and trees. So it would seem unlikely that they were able to survive in the ice-covered regions of Alaska and Yukon during the last full-glacial period, as previous fossil dating has suggested,” said Grant Zazula, a paleontologist in the Yukon Palaeontology Program and lead author of the new work.

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An American mastodon. Bottom: An American mastodon (left) and a woolly mammoth for comparison (right). Image courtesy George Teichmann.

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Megafaunal mammals including the American mastodon (rear center), Jefferson’s ground sloth (front center and right), the flat-headed peccary (front left), and the western camel (rear left) extended their habitat into northern latitudes during the last interglacial period, around 125,000 years ago. Image courtesy of George Teichmann.

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The research team used two different types of precise radiocarbon dating on a collection of 36 fossil teeth and bones of American mastodons from Alaska and Yukon, the region known as eastern Beringia. The dating methods, performed at Oxford University and the University of California, Irvine, are designed to only target material from bone collagen, avoiding the accompanying “slop,” including preparation varnish and glues that were used many years ago to strengthen the specimens.

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Grant Zazula, a paleontologist in the Yukon Palaeontology Program and lead author of the new work, cuts samples of American mastodon bones for radiocarbon dating. Credit: © G. Zazula

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A mastodon molar. Courtesy G. Zazula

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All of the fossils were found to be older than previously thought, with most surpassing 50,000 years, the effective limit of radiocarbon dating. When taking mastodon habitat preferences and other ecological and geological information into account, the results indicate that mastodons probably only lived in the Arctic and Subarctic for a limited time around 125,000 years ago, when forests and wetlands were established and the temperatures were as warm as they are today.

The residency of mastodons in the north did not last long,” Zazula said. “The return to cold, dry glacial conditions along with the advance of continental glaciers around 75,000 years ago effectively wiped out their habitats. Mastodons disappeared from Beringia, and their populations became displaced to areas much farther to the south, where they ultimately suffered complete extinction about 10,000 years ago.”

The work has several implications. Researchers know that giant ground sloths, American camels, and giant beavers made the migration as well, but they are still investigating what other groups of animals might have followed this course. The new report also suggests that humans could not have been involved in the local extinction of mastodons in the north 75,000 years ago as they had not yet crossed the Bering Isthmus from Asia.

“We’re not saying that humans were uninvolved in the megafauna’s last stand 10,000 years ago. But by that time, whatever the mastodon population was down to, their range had shrunken mostly to the Great Lakes region,” MacPhee said. “That’s a very different scenario from saying the human depredations caused universal loss of mastodons across their entire range within the space of a few hundred years, which is the conventional view.”

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Source: Edited and adapted from an American Museum of Natural History press release and a press release of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Other authors of the paper include Jessica Metcalfe, University of British Columbia; Alberto Reyes, University of Alberta; Fiona Brock and Shweta Nalawade-Chavan, Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit; Patrick Drukenmiller, University of Alaska Museum and University of Alaska Fairbanks; Pamela Groves, Daniel Mann, and Michael Kunz, University of Alaska Fairbanks; C. Richard Harington, Canadian Museum of Nature; Gregory Hodgins, University of Arizona, Tucson; Fred Longstaffe, University of Western Ontario, London; H. Gregory McDonald, U.S. National Parks Service; and John Southon, University of California, Irvine.

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Potential ‘vampires’ buried in Poland with sickles and rocks placed across their corpses were likely local people known by their community before death, say researchers in a study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Lesley Gregoricka from University of South Alabama and colleagues.

Archaeologists and other scientists who have exhumed the medieval and post-medieval skeletal remains of individuals in cemeteries across Europe in the course of their research have long known about burials of individuals who were thought to be potential ‘vampires’, or the ‘undead’. They know this by the peculiar features associated with the skeletal remains within the graves, objects such as sickles placed across the bodies, large stones placed over the neck or under the chins, iron bars or ‘stakes’ inserted through the chest area, or bricks or stones inserted within the cavity between the madible and the cranium (the mouth). They are considered indicators of apotropaic burial practices, or bodily treatments to the deceased within their coffins or graves designed to prevent them from returning to life and rising out of their graves to haunt, kill or eat the living. Only a minority of burials across Europe have exhibited these characteristics, but the practice is a reflection of a variety of cultural or religious beliefs that have inspired or spawned the more modern, popular conceptions in literature and the media about Dracula and vampires within the horror genre—a fascination and source of entertainment for generations.

Beginning in 2008, excavations carried out by an international team at the ‘Drawsko 1’ post-medieval cemetery site in northwestern Poland revealed six unusual graves, with skeletal remains dated to the 17th – 18th century showing sickles across the bodies or large rocks under the chins of select individuals. Though unusual, these burials were among hundreds of other normal burials. The researchers at the site have interpreted them to be apotropaic burials.

“In Polish folklore……the soul and the body are distinct entities that separate upon a person’s death,” write Lesley A. Gregoricka of the University of South Alabama and colleagues in the report. “Souls, the majority of which are harmless, leave the body and continue to inhabit the earth for 40 days after death. However, a small minority of these souls were seen as a direct threat to the living and at risk of becoming a vampire, particularly those who were marginalized in life for having an unusual physical appearance, practicing witchcraft, perishing first during an epidemic, committing suicide, being unbaptized or born out of wedlock, or being an outsider to the community.”*

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Individual 49/2012 (30-39 year old female) is shown with a sickle placed across the neck. Courtesy Amy Scott

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Individual 60/2010 (60+ year old female) is shown with a stone placed directly on top of the throat. Courtesy Gregoricka et al.

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In the study, Gregoricka and her colleagues analyzed the remains of 60 of the total of 285 buried skeletal remains unearthed in the excavations, including those of five of the six “special” or deviant, apotropaic, burials, by using radiometric strontium isotope analysis of dental enamel samples. The study was designed to determine whether the bodies selected for apotropaic burial rites were local or immigrants, one factor that can be scientifically tested. The research methodology used is important because strontium isotopes are absorbed by the flora and fauna of local ecosystems, which include humans, by the weathering or breakdown of bedrock into the soils and groundwater.  “Because strontium is structurally similar to calcium, as humans consume these plants and animals, small amounts of strontium absorbed by the intestines substitute for calcium in the formation of enamel and bone hydroxyapatite,” wrote Gregoricka, et al. in the report. “Strontium uptake into the human skeleton is primarily determined by these consumed foods, and because the 87Sr/86Sr ratios within these products are a direct reflection of the distinct isotopic composition of a particular region’s underlying geology, biogeochemical signatures in human dental enamel (which form only during childhood) offer a useful means of evaluating childhood geographic residence and mobility in the past.”*

The team’s conclusion: The ‘vampires’ were local. They did not immigrate into the community from the outside, often cited historically by residents of communities during the 17th and 18th centuries as a reason for the introduction of evil elements into the social structure. The data thus indicated that they had to be perceived with suspicion in some other way. The study authors suggest one alternate explanation could be related to the cholera epidemics in Eastern Europe during the 17th century. “People of the post-medieval period did not understand how disease was spread, and rather than a scientific explanation for these epidemics, cholera and the deaths that resulted from it were explained by the supernatural – in this case, vampires,” said Dr. Gregoricka. “However,” cautioned Gregoricka in the report,”because cholera kills quickly and does not leave behind visible markers on the skeleton, it is unclear if this is the case at Drawsko.”*

The research study was published November 26, 2014 in the open access journal, PLOS ONE.

A more extensive feature article about the archaeology of ‘vampires’ will be published in the Winter 2015 issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine.

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*Gregoricka LA, Betsinger TK, Scott AB, Polcyn M (2014) Apotropaic Practices and the Undead: A Biogeochemical Assessment of Deviant Burials in Post-Medieval Poland. PLoS ONE 9(11): e113564. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0113564

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

Animal teeth, bones and plant remains have helped researchers from Cambridge, China and America to pinpoint a date for what could be the earliest sustained human habitation at high altitude.

Archaeological discoveries from the ‘roof of the world’ on the Tibetan Plateau indicate that from 3,600 years ago, crop growing and the raising of livestock was taking place year-round at hitherto unprecedented altitudes.

The findings, published today in Science, demonstrate that across 53 archaeological sites spanning 800 miles, there is evidence of sustained farming and human habitation between 2,500 metres above sea level (8,200ft) and 3,400 metres (11,154ft).

Evidence of an intermittent human presence on the Tibetan Plateau has been dated to at least 20,000 years ago, with the first semi-permanent villages established only 5,200 years ago. The presence of crops and livestock at the altitudes discovered by researchers indicates a more sustained human presence than is needed to merely hunt game at such heights.

Professor Martin Jones, from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology, and one of the lead researchers on the project, said: “Until now, when and how humans started to live and farm at such extraordinary heights has remained an open question. Our understanding of sustained habitation above 2-3,000m on the Tibetan Plateau has to date been hampered by the scarcity of archaeological data available.

“But our findings show that not only did these farmer-herders conquer unheard of heights in terms of raising livestock and growing crops like barley and millet, but that human expansion into the higher, colder altitudes took place as the continental temperatures were becoming colder.

“Year-round survival at these altitudes must have led to some very challenging conditions indeed – and this poses further, interesting questions for researchers about the adaptation of humans, livestock and crops to life at such dizzying heights.”

Professor Jones hopes more work will now be undertaken to look at genetic resistance in humans to altitude sickness, and genetic response in crop plants in relation to attributes such as grain vernalisation, flowering time response and ultraviolet radiation tolerance – as well as research into the genetic and ethnic identity of the human communities themselves.

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Modern-day barley harvest in Qinghai, farmed at a height of 3,000 meters above sea level. Credit Professor Martin Jones, University of Cambridge

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Research on the Tibetan Plateau has also raised interesting questions about the timing and introduction of Western crops such as barley and wheat – staples of the so-called ‘Fertile Crescent’. From 4,000-3,600 years ago, this meeting of east and west led to the joining or displacement of traditional North Chinese crops of broomcorn and foxtail millet. The importation of Western cereals enabled human communities to adapt to the harsher conditions of higher altitudes in the Plateau.

In order to ascertain during what period and at what altitude sustained food produced first enabled an enduring human presence, the research group collected artefacts, animal bones and plant remains from 53 sites across the late Yangshao, Majiayao, Qiija, Xindian, Kayue and Nuomuhong cultures.

Cereal grains (foxtail millet, broomcorn millet, barley and wheat) were identified at all 53 sites and animal bones and teeth (from sheep, cattle and pig) were discovered at ten sites. Of the 53 sites, an earlier group (dating from 5,200-3,600 years ago) reached a maximum elevation of 2,527m while a later group of 29 sites (dating from 3,600-2,300 years ago) approached 3,400m in altitude.

Professor Jones believes the Tibetan Plateau research could have wider and further-reaching implications for today’s world in terms of global food security and the possibilities of rebalancing the ‘global diet’; at present heavily, and perhaps unsustainably, swayed in favour of the big three crops of rice, wheat and maize.

He said: “Our current knowledge of agricultural foods emphasises a relatively small number of crops growing in the intensively managed lowlands. The more we learn about the rich ecology of past and present societies, and the wider range of crops they raised in the world’s more challenging environments, the more options we will have for thinking through food security issues in the future.”

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Source: University of Cambridge press release

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Just released!

The special new premium quality print edition of Popular Archaeology Magazine. A beautiful volume for the coffee table.

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Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about.  AND MORE:

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

Ostia Antica, the famous Roman port that served the city of Rome from the days of the Republic through Imperial times, is noted for its remarkably preserved ancient buildings, frescoes and mosaics. Located near Rome, its ruins lie near the modern suburb of Ostia, a popular destination for tourists and teams of excavating archaeologists for years. During its heyday it skirted the banks of the Tiber river, but silting over centuries of time has placed the site 3 kilometres (2 miles) from the sea. Many of its ancient structures, however, remain extraordinarily intact, almost as if to imply that nothing has changed.

In 2015, a team of archaeologists and students will once again return to the site under the direction of Dr. Darius Arya and Dr. Michele Raddi of the American Institute of Roman Culture. They will be focusing their efforts on two areas in the Parco dei Ravennati, a public park area near the main archaeological site of Ostia and the famous Medieval borgo Renaissance castle built by Pope Julius II. The first area, designated ‘Area A’, contains an Imperial Roman structure built using the opus mixtum construction technique and redecorated in Late Antiquity with frescoes and an opus sectile floor in one room, which was later divided into a series of smaller rooms during the Medieval period. Next to this is a 15th century vaulted structure that was partially investigated in the late 1960s, thought to be associated with the construction of the borgo castle. The second area, designated ‘Area B’, features part of a Roman road next to a circular Late Republican period mausoleum, excavated in previous years. Arya, et al., believe this part of the road was “likely the last major phase of the Via Ostiensis dating to the early Middle Ages”.*

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Ostia Antica, for obvious reasons as depicted above, is among the most visited archaeological sites in Italy, with visual reminders of places like Pompeii. Wikimedia Commons

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The upcoming excavations come on the heals of some remarkable finds by the team in recent years. “We’ve had amazing finds over the past two years at Parco dei Ravennati,” Arya told ANSA, the Italian news wire service, in an interview last July. “This year, we’ve uncovered more than a dozen early Christian-era tombs arranged close to a central tomb. Our working hypothesis is that the set up of the surrounding tombs suggests the person buried here was of great importance, such as Saint Monica or Saint Aurea, whose church is nearby.” Excavators also uncovered a number of fragmentary funerary inscriptions and a possible tabella defixionum, a lead tablet inscribed with a curse to protect the dead from tomb raiders. In 2013, the team uncovered an opus sectile (an inlaid, colored marble pavement). The 2014 excavations continued the work on the pavement, revealing a detailed geometric motif.

Darya and colleagues are currently calling for individuals who would be interested in participating in the excavations during the 2015 summer season. For more information about the Ostia Antica excavations and how to participate, see the website for details.

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*http://romanculture.org/programs/current-field-school-excavation/

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Just released!

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

Scientists will have to find alternative explanations for a huge population collapse in Europe at the end of the Bronze Age as researchers prove definitively that climate change – commonly assumed to be responsible – could not have been the culprit.

Archaeologists and environmental scientists from the University of Bradford, University of Leeds, University College Cork, Ireland (UCC), and Queen’s University Belfast have shown that the changes in climate that scientists believed to coincide with the fall in population in fact occurred at least two generations later.

Their results, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that human activity starts to decline after 900BC, and falls rapidly after 800BC, indicating a population collapse. But the climate records show that colder, wetter conditions didn’t occur until around two generations later.

Fluctuations in levels of human activity through time are reflected by the numbers of radiocarbon dates for a given period. The team used new statistical techniques to analyse more than 2000 radiocarbon dates, taken from hundreds of archaeological sites in Ireland, to pinpoint the precise dates that Europe’s Bronze Age population collapse occurred.

The team then analysed past climate records from peat bogs in Ireland and compared the archaeological data to these climate records to see if the dates tallied. That information was then compared with evidence of climate change across NW Europe between 1200 and 500 BC.

“Our evidence shows definitively that the population decline in this period cannot have been caused by climate change,” says Ian Armit, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Bradford, and lead author of the study.

Graeme Swindles, Associate Professor of Earth System Dynamics at the University of Leeds, added, “We found clear evidence for a rapid change in climate to much wetter conditions, which we were able to precisely pinpoint to 750BC using statistical methods.”

According to Professor Armit, social and economic stress is more likely to be the cause of the sudden and widespread fall in numbers. Communities producing bronze needed to trade over very large distances to obtain copper and tin. Control of these networks enabled the growth of complex, hierarchical societies dominated by a warrior elite. As iron production took over, these networks collapsed, leading to widespread conflict and social collapse. It may be these unstable social conditions, rather than climate change, that led to the population collapse at the end of the Bronze Age.

According to Katharina Becker, Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at UCC, the Late Bronze Age is usually seen as a time of plenty, in contrast to an impoverished Early Iron Age. “Our results show that the rich Bronze Age artefact record does not provide the full picture and that crisis began earlier than previously thought,” she says.

“Although climate change was not directly responsible for the collapse it is likely that the poor climatic conditions would have affected farming,” adds Professor Armit. “This would have been particularly difficult for vulnerable communities, preventing population recovery for several centuries.”

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Painting depicting the fall of Troy, a symbolism here of the Late Bronze Age civilization collapse. Wikimedia Commons

The findings have significance for modern day climate change debates which, argues Professor Armit, are often too quick to link historical climate events with changes in population.

“The impact of climate change on humans is a huge concern today as we monitor rising temperatures globally,” says Professor Armit.

“Often, in examining the past, we are inclined to link evidence of climate change with evidence of population change. Actually, if you have high quality data and apply modern analytical techniques, you get a much clearer picture and start to see the real complexity of human/environment relationships in the past.”

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Source: University of Bradford press release.

The detailed research paper: “Rapid climate change did not cause population collapse at the end of the European Bronze Age”, by Ian Armit, Graeme Swindles, Katharina Becker, Gill Plunkett and Maarten Blaauw, is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the week beginning 17 November 2014.

Archaeology in Ireland

Ireland offers particularly rich opportunities to study archaeological records, partly because of the quality of palaeoenvironmental samples from the countries peat bogs, and partly because of a huge upsurge in archaeological excavations in Ireland during the economic boom between 1995 and 2008.

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Just released!

The special new premium quality print edition of Popular Archaeology Magazine. A beautiful volume for the coffee table.

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Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about.  AND MORE:

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

Yes, it is true. Popular Archaeology Magazine is now among the world’s top 20 most popular digital magazines for those interested in archaeology. In fact, it ranks no. 2, close on the heals of Archaeology Magazine, the publication of the Archaeological Institute of America, which has been around for decades with a strong traditional following. Comparatively speaking, Popular Archaeology is the new kid on the block, having been up and running for less than 5 years. But it has been the quality of its content that so quickly propelled Popular Archaeology to the top rung of the heap.

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Much is still unknown about these people who once occupied present-day northeastern Oman about 5,000 years ago. They left no written records, at least none that have been found to date. They made up what scholars and historians have referred to as the ancient Magan civilization.

“The people of Magan did not use writing or glyptic arts to record their history or organize their societies, so we know very little about their way of life,” write Christopher Thornton, Charlotte Cable and colleagues about the ancient society.* Discovering more about it must be left to the tools and methods of archaeology.

Thornton, a consulting scholar at the Penn Museum, has been co-directing the Bat Archaeological Project since 2007. Bat, the focus of investigations under the Project, is a settlement identified with the Magan civilization. The site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the interior of the country. It features a large Bronze Age cemetery and other evidence of 3rd millennium BCE settlements near large, circular structures called “towers”, which have been the subjects of their excavations from 2007 to 2012. But in 2013, they shifted to exploring a series of Bronze Age domestic structures, including 3rd millennium BCE structures excavated in 2014 that give clues to the transition from an early agricultural settlement to a developed center for trade and production. 

“Bat is unusual in eastern Arabia for its relatively deep stratigraphic sequence (1-3 meters), in which earlier houses are overlain by later houses,” state Thornton and colleagues in a summary brief. “While common in other regions of the world, Bat has the potential to provide the first radiocarbon-dated stratigraphic sequence of the 3rd millennium BCE on the Omani Peninsula, and our first glimpse of settlement evolution in the Bronze Age of this area.”**

Bat, along with the sites of al-Khutm and al-Ayn, are thought by scholars to be ancient centers that traded extensively with Mesopotamia between 3000 and 2000 BCE. Sumerian cuneiform texts make reference to Magan as a major source of copper and diorite in 2300 BCE, describing ships with cargo capacities of 20 tons journeying up the Arabian Gulf, stopping at ancient Dilmun along the way. They also record Indus Valley merchants and others traveling to Magan. Research in this area of Arabia has identified large copper deposits, in addition to more than 150 medieval smelting sites, reinforcing the notion that the region had the natural resources to suggest that this was, indeed, where ancient Magan was located.

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Scattered remains of ancient tombs at Bat. Stefan Karsowski, Wikimedia Commons

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Thornton and Cable plan to return to Bat in 2015 with a team of archaeologists, other specialists and student volunteers to further investigate the domestic structures, in addition to nearby abandoned Late Islamic/pre-Modern mud-brick village structures, working alongside the local community to study how the village spaces were used.

They plan to have the people of the local community assume a significant role in the research, an element that is fast becoming an important trend in archaeological projects and activities throughout the world. “With the conferring of World Heritage (WH) status to the adjacent Bronze Age cemetery and settlement of Bat”, report Thornton, et al., “the people of Bat have increasingly become interested in their own recent history and its meaningful role in the development and articulation of their identity, and are very keen to develop the heritage and tourist potential of the Oasis and site.”**

The Bat project directors are calling for help from students and volunteers all over the world. For more information, see the project field school website.

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*http://ifrglobal.org/programs/me/oman-bat?utm_source=IFR+Newsletter&utm_campaign=6c7212178d-Oman_Bat_Permit_Received11_12_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5da3ddc8ef-6c7212178d-326738257

**http://ifrglobal.org/images/2014/Syllabus/Syllabus-Oman_BAT_2014.pdf

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Just released!

The special new premium quality print edition of Popular Archaeology Magazine. A beautiful volume for the coffee table.

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Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about.  AND MORE:

On the go?  Get the smartphone version of Popular Archaeology as an app or as an ebook.

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.

Archaeologists are scratching their heads about an underground pyramid-shaped structure they have been excavating beneath the historic medieval town of Orvieto in Italy. But it may not be a mystery forever. They hope to find answers as they continue to tease artifacts and architectural materials from the soil.

“We discovered it three summers ago and still have no idea what it is,” write Prof. David B. George of St. Anselm College and co-director Claudio Bizzarri of PAAO and colleagues about the site. “We do know what it is not.  It is not a quarry; it’s walls are too well dressed. It is not a well or cistern; its walls have no evidence of hydraulic treatments.”*

Calling it the “cavitá” (‘hole’ or ‘hollow’ in Italian), or hypogeum, the archaeologists have thus far excavated about 15 meters down. They marked their third year at the site in 2014. By then they had uncovered significant amounts of what they classify as Gray and Black bucchero, commonware, and Red and Black Figure pottery remains. They have dated deposits to the middle to the end of the 6th century BCE.

“We know that the site was sealed toward the end of the 5th century BCE,” George, et al. continue. “It appears to have been a single event. Of great significance is the number of Etruscan language inscriptions that we have recovered – over a hundred and fifty. We are also finding an interesting array of architectural/decorative terra cotta.”*

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Overview of cavità, showing Etruscan tunnel and a locus with large quantities of pottery. Courtesy Daniel George, Jr.

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Excavation on the west wall of the hypogeum near the Etruscan tunnel that connects this pyramidal hypogeum (Room A) with an adjacent one (Room B). Courtesy Daniel George, Jr.

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Looking from Room B through the Etruscan tunnel into Room A. Courtesy Daniel George, Jr.

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Above and below: The medieval columbarium – a place for raising pigeons – in the cavità used as a lab to sort bucchero. Courtesy Daniel George, Jr.

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Orvieto has long been known for its scenic medieval architecture. Located in southwestern Umbria, Italy, it is situated on the summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff, commanding a view of the surrounding countryside, and surrounded by defensive walls built of the same volcanic tuff.  Beneath it and in the surrounding areas of the medieval town, however, lie ancient Etruscan and Roman remains, a focus of archaeological investigations and excavations by various teams for decades. George’s excavations have centered on four different sites in the area, two (Coriglia and the Orvieto underground structures) of which will be further excavated in 2015. The Coriglia excavations have resulted in a wealth of finds, including monumental structures such as Etruscan and Roman walls, Etruscan and imported Greek ceramic materials, three large basins dated to the Roman Imperial period, and apsidal structures with associated features related to the management of water for baths or other purposes. “We have uncovered evidence for occupation of the site dating from the 10th century BCE all the way to the 16th century CE, as well as random realia from World War II,” write George, et al.**

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View of Orvieto. RDesai, Wikimedia Commons

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At Coriglia: Trench F showing a viscera with hydraulic cement and flooring with a collapsed vault to the right (Likely 2nd century CE).  On the left a medieval industrial reuse of the structure. Courtesy David B. George

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‘Trench C’ showing the recently discovered caldarium of a Roman bath (Imperial period) at Coriglia. Courtesy David B. George

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Overall, excavations under George and Bizzarri’s direction in the area have recovered monumental structures, sculptures, mosaics, coinage, inscriptions, ceramics, frescoes, and numerous other artifacts. Looking forward, he anticipates new finds that will shed additional light and answer more questions about what the sites at Orvieto and Coriglia are all about. “We are still trying to determine how the structure was ‘killed’ [filled in and then abandoned] – in a short period of time confined over the course of a few months or over a much longer period,” says George, referring to the cavitá. “The tight dating of the Attic pottery seems to indicate a short period but the enormous quantity gives one pause. At Coriglia, our current hypothesis is that it is a sanctuary. We wish to test this by excavating in areas that should yield architectural and ceramic evidence that would be associated with such use. We are still working on the phasing of our walls and getting a handle on three periods of expansion, at least one of which followed a mudslide.”

Even more important, however, may be what their findings will ultimately say about the lives of people in the region so long ago. Write George, Bizzarri and colleagues, “based on what is known from similar sites in the region, the members of our archaeological expedition may be confident that they will make discoveries that will reflect daily life in the Etruscan and Roman periods.”* 

More detailed information about the sites and excavation project can be obtained at the project website and here. The latter link includes information about how to apply, for those interested in participating in the excavations.

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*http://www.archaeological.org/sites/default/files/brochure2015_1.pdf

** http://digumbria.com/

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Whether you are a human being or an orangutan, tools can be a big help in getting what you need to survive. However, a review of current research into the use of tools by non-human primates suggests that ecological opportunity, rather than necessity, is the main driver behind primates such as chimpanzees picking up a stone to crack open nuts.

An opinion piece by Dr Kathelijne Koops of the University of Cambridge and others, published today (12 November 2014) in Biology Letters, challenges the assumption that necessity is the mother of invention. She and her colleagues argue that research into tool use by primates should look at the opportunities for tool use provided by the local environment.

Koops and colleagues reviewed studies on tool use among the three habitual tool-using primates – chimpanzees, orangutans and bearded capuchins.

Chimpanzees use a variety of tools in a range of contexts, including stones to crack open nuts, and sticks to harvest aggressive army ants. Orangutans also use stick tools to prey on insects, as well as to extract seeds from fruits. Bearded capuchin monkeys living in savannah-like environments also use a variety of tools, including stones to crack open nuts and sticks to dig for tubers.

The researchers’ review of the published literature, including their own studies, revealed that, against expectations, tool use did not increase in times when food was scarce. Instead, tool use appears to be determined by ecological opportunity – with calorie-rich but hard-to-reach foodstuffs appearing to act as an incentive for an ingenious use of materials.

“By ecological opportunity, we mean the likelihood of encountering tool materials and resources whose exploitation requires the use of tools. We showed that these ecological opportunities influence the occurrence of tool use. The resources extracted using tools, such as nuts and honey, are among the richest in primate habitats. Hence, extraction pays off, and not just during times of food scarcity,” said Koops.

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This image shows a chimpanzee using a stone to crack a nut. Courtesy Kathelijine Koops

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Tool use—and transmission of tool-making and tool-using skills between individuals—is seen as an important marker in the development of culture. “Given our close genetic links to our primate cousins, their tool use may provide valuable insights into how humans developed their extraordinary material culture and technology,” said Koops.

It has been argued that culture is present among wild primates because simple ecological and genetic differences alone cannot account for the variation of behaviour – such as tool use – observed across populations of the same species.

Koops and co-researchers argue that this ‘method of exclusion’ may present a misleading picture when applied to the material aspects of culture.

“The local environment may exert a powerful influence on culture and may, in fact, be critical for understanding the occurrence and distribution of material culture. In forests with plenty of nut trees, we are more likely to find chimpanzees cracking nuts, which is the textbook example of chimpanzee material culture,” said Koops.

“Our study suggests that published research on primate cultures, which depend on the ‘method of exclusion’, may well underestimate the cultural repertoires of primates in the wild, perhaps by a wide margin. We propose a model in which the environment is explicitly recognised as a possible influence on material culture.”

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The opinion piece ‘Ecological conditions influence primate cultures’ is published by Biology Letters. The authors are Kathelijine Koops (University of Cambridge, Archaeology and Anthropology and University of Zurich, Anthropological Institute and Museum), Elisabetta Visalberghi (CNR, Institute of Cognitive Sciences) and Carel van Schaik (University of Zurich, Anthropological Institute and Museum).

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Source: University of Cambridge Press Release

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

A team of archaeologists have unearthed new evidence of massive, monumental defensive works at the Citadel Mound site of ancient Gordion in Turkey. Excavations have also revealed ancient industrial activity dating back to the 11th century BCE.

Located about 70–80 km southwest of Ankara in western Turkey, Gordion, the ancient city best known as the residence of the legendary King Midas, has been the focus of on-and-off excavations since it was discovered in 1893 by Alfred Körte, who initiated exploratory excavations at the site in 1900. Now, Brian Rose of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues have uncovered massive defensive walls, part of a road, and industrial work spaces dated back to some of the earliest periods of the site. During the early first millennium B.C., Gordion was the power center of the Phrygian kingdom, ruling much of Asia Minor. It was under King Midas and later rulers that the kingdom reached its apogee. 

“Gordion’s historical significance derives from its very long and complex sequence of occupation, with seven successive settlements spanning a period of nearly 4500 years,” says Rose. “What we discovered was a large glacis or stepped terrace wall over 2.5 m in height, dating to the Early Phrygian period, that supported a substantial fortification wall nearly 3 m. wide. This had proven that the western side of the mound was fortified, and that those fortifications had already been established in the Early Phrygian period (9th c. B.C.), neither of which had been known previously.”*

Other massive fortifications, particularly on the eastern side of the Citadel Mound, were uncovered through previous expeditions. But in the last two seasons, beginning in 2013 under Rose’s renewed excavations at the south side of the Citadel Mound, solid new evidence has emerged for additional defensive works. 

Most significantly, the excavations have also now revealed fortifications spanning the entire time period of Phrygian rule in the region.  “We were fortunate this year in uncovering new fortifications dating to three different periods: Early Phrygian (9th c. BC), Middle Phrygian (8th c. BC) and Late Phrygian (6th c. BC)…….it is already clear that the scale of the citadel fortifications throughout the entire Phrygian period was much more ambitious than formerly suspected.”*

Additionally, Rose’s team excavated a sondage trench through what has been designated the Terrace Building, a structure discovered during previous excavations and thought to be a building where industrial activities occurred. They uncovered a large industrial kiln surrounded by ceramic remains that helped to date the feature to the Early Iron Age, or the 11th century BCE. Above and east of the kiln they excavated an Early Iron Age house structure, which contained objects related to textile manufacture, such as spindle whorls and loom weights, and a bell-shaped pit that contained fragments of Early Iron Age handmade wares and animal bones. “The evidence yielded by the sondage demonstrates that there was considerable industrial activity in this area before the Terrace Building was constructed, beginning in the 11th c. B.C.,” wrote Rose in a recent newsletter report.*

The Outer Town

Concurrent with the excavations and conservation efforts at Gordion, a team under the direction of Stefan Giese and Christian Huebner of GGH in Freiburg, Germany, has been conducting a geophysical survey of the ‘Outer Town’  using magnetometry and electric resistivity techniques. The Outer Town is a second residential area with detected remains just west of the Lower Town, another residential area that extends below the Citadel Mound. What they found has been no less revelatory than the Citadel Mound discoveries. They detected signs that the Outer Town was “bordered by a ditch with a defensive wall on its interior”*, which the team believes surrounded the entire Outer Town. The findings include other features that suggest a monumental fort. These preliminary finds are similar to those previously discovered in the Lower Town, which also features a defensive wall and ditch.

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View of the Gordion Citadel Mound and previously excavated fortifications. Note the scaffolding at the Citadel Gateway in the background, a visible reminder of the ongoing architectural conservation and restoration work at the site. Vikicizer, Wikimedia Commons

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Elevated overview of the Citadel Mound area. Stipich Bela, Wikimedia Commons

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Although archaeological excavations have taken place at Gordion over decades through a number of expeditionary endeavors, the best known excavations were conducted under the directorship of Rodney Young of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum) beginning in the 1950’s. His excavations over 17 seasons uncovered major sections of the Phrygian period Citadel Mound, including overlying Hellenistic towns, and a mudbrick fortress and defensive walls of a Lower Town near the Citadel. During the first years of his excavations, he encountered earlier Bronze Age settlement remains, but investigations of these levels were limited. Young also uncovered 30 burial tumuli, which included the sensational royal ‘Tumulus MM‘ (Midas Mound) and a nearby tomb of a wealthy Phrygian child (Tumulus P). 

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The Tumulus MM, showing entrance to the associated museum. Tipich Bela, Wikimedia Commons

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Rose will be continuing excavations at the site in 2015 and ensuing years under the auspices of the Penn Museum, efforts that have included extensive architectural conservation and restoration work, notably at the spectacular Early Phrygian Gate, considered the best preserved citadel gate of Iron Age Asia Minor. 

“We have not yet determined the city plan of the settlement,” says Rose, “but by combining excavation with remote sensing (radar, magnetic prospection), we should be able to do it.”

More information about the Gordion Archaeological Project can be found at the website. In addition, an in-depth article about Gordion and the excavations will be published in the Winter 2014/2015 issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine.

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* Rose, C. Brian and Gürsan-Salzman, Ayse, Friends of Gordion Newsletter, September 2014

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

GREENVILLE, N.C. — Just in from the Atlantic Ocean, the 23rd cannon recovered from the
Queen Anne’s Revenge wreck site will be one of the stars of the free Open House at the Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Lab in Greenville Nov. 15, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. The 4 foot cannon and other artifacts recovered during the Oct. 6-27 expedition will be displayed. It’s an ideal opportunity for those fascinated by pirates, archaeology and interested in conservation. No registration is required.

The Queen Anne’s Revenge was the flagship of the famous pirate known as Blackbeard, or Edward Teach, whose ship ran aground and sunk off Beaufort Inlent, North Carolina in 1718.
 
The open house will allow visitors of all ages to learn about recovery and conservation of Blackbeard’s cannons, and even take a picture with the cannon most recently recovered. Guests can look through a microscope at the smallest objects recovered over the years and see mysteries revealed in x-rays.
 
Archaeologists with the Underwater Archaeology Branch (UAB) in the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources executed the most recent excavation operation in the fall, 2014, at the wreck site of Blackbeard’s flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR), near Beaufort. In addition to the cannon, nine cannonballs, bar shot halves, an iron bolt and a grenade were recovered.

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The cannon raised during the October, 2014 expedition. Credit N.C. Department of Cultural Resources

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A cannon as it was being raised from the site of QAR during a previous expedition. Credit North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources

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Among researchers on the excavation was Conservator Kimberly Kenyon, who recorded and tagged each artifact as it was reclaimed from the sea. The cannon was an expected recovery, the grenade was not.
 
“We knew cannonballs were attached to the cannon, but the grenade was something of a surprise,” Kenyon observes. “It’s hollow in the center and would have been filled with gunpowder. Now we have recovered seven grenades and 23 cannons. We brought them all to the conservation lab for treatment.”
 
Kenyon and UAB Archaeologist/Conservator Nathan Henry did much of the work to prepare the cannon for lifting. The initial plan had been to recover two cannons, but weather conditions and the difficulty of separating the two cannons prevented that. The team was working on one complex mass at the site composed of four cannons and an anchor held together by a coating of sand, marine life and shells called concretion.
 
Another surprise awaited the team. When the recovered cannon was lifted, yet another small cannon was discovered under the one left behind. Historical records indicate that Blackbeard equipped the QAR with 40 guns, so additional cannons not yet mapped may be discovered. Donations to help the project and research can be made to the Friends of Queen Anne’s Revenge.
 
Archaeologists and historians with the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources have led recovery efforts at the shipwreck site since 1997. Cannons, platters, medical and scientific instruments used by 18th century pirates have rested on the floor of the Atlantic since 1718. Tens of thousands of artifacts have been recovered.

Intersal, Inc., a private research firm, discovered the site believed to be Queen Anne’s Revenge Nov. 21, 1996. QAR was located near Beaufort Inlet, N.C., by Intersal’s director of operations, Mike Daniel, who used historical research provided by Intersal’s president, Phil Masters. Daniel now heads up Maritime Research Institute, the nonprofit corporation formed to work on the project in cooperation with state archaeologists and historians of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History.
 
For additional information, please call (252) 744-6721. The Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck Project is within the Office of State Archaeology in the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. In-depth information about the excavations can be obtained in this article and at the project website.

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Source: Adapted and edited from a press release of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

About the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources

The N.C. Department of Cultural Resources (NCDCR) is the state agency with a vision to be the leader in using the state’s cultural resources to build the social, cultural and economic future of North Carolina. Led by Secretary Susan W. Kluttz, NCDCR’s mission is to enrich lives and communities by creating opportunities to experience excellence in the arts, history and libraries in North Carolina that will spark creativity, stimulate learning, preserve the state’s history and promote the creative economy. NCDCR was the first state organization in the nation to include all agencies for arts and culture under one umbrella.

Through arts efforts led by the N.C. Arts Council, the N.C. Symphony and the N.C. Museum of Art, NCDCR offers the opportunity for enriching arts education for young and old alike and spurring the economic stimulus engine for our state’s communities. NCDCR’s Divisions of State Archives, Historical Resources, State Historic Sites and State History Museums preserve, document and interpret North Carolina’s rich cultural heritage to offer experiences of learning and reflection. NCDCR’s State Library of North Carolina is the principal library of state government and builds the capacity of all libraries in our state to develop and to offer access to educational resources through traditional and online collections including genealogy and resources for people who are blind and have physical disabilities.  
 
NCDCR annually serves more than 19 million people through its 27 historic sites, seven history museums, two art museums, the nation’s first state-supported Symphony Orchestra, the State Library, the N.C. Arts Council and the State Archives. NCDCR champions our state’s creative industry that accounts for more than 300,000 jobs and generates nearly $18.5 billion in revenues. For more information, please call (919) 807-7300 or visit www.ncdcr.gov.
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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

The exhibition also presents a variety of precious objects from the collection of the Cabinet des médailles at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, one of the premier repositories of ancient luxury arts. The objects on display include the four newly restored Late Antique missoria, cameos, intaglios, gold coins and jewelry, marbles, and bronzes. These surviving artifacts from the Cabinet’s collection not only demonstrate the skills of Roman craftsmen but also provide valuable information about social relations at the height of the empire in the first to sixth centuries A.D.

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

Perched atop Sussita Mountain near the eastern bank of the Sea of Galilee, the city’s ruins afford a commanding view of this ancient lake. One of the ten cities of the Decapolis, it was a Roman/Hellenistic enclave in ancient Palestine during the height of the Roman Empire. Known then as Antiochia Hippos, its ruins are now being explored and excavated by teams of archaeologists, students and volunteers. To date, they have unearthed a wealth of artifacts and an array of Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Ummayad structures spanning a period of a thousand years—from the 2nd century BCE to the 8th century CE. Among the excavated remains are toppled columns and damaged structures, evidence of a violent earthquake that destroyed the city in 749 CE. It was the end of Antiochia Hippos. Its citizens abandoned it, never to return.

But excavators have recently uncovered evidence of another, earlier earthquake at Hippos. This one, occurring in 363 CE, left the city seriously damaged, but recoverable. During the last season of excavations the team uncovered a number of crushed human skeletal remains beneath a collapsed roof of the city Basilica, considered the largest structure of the city and the main public building and market center. Among the skeletal remains were those of a woman with a golden, dove-shaped pendant. The skeletons were dated to the earlier, 363 earthquake because of coins found between the Basilica floor and other architectural elements. At another location, they discovered evidence of the same earthquake destruction within a Roman bath complex. “Under the debris of the 363 earthquake we found part of a Roman statue. Superb Roman craftsmanship in marble, but just the right leg of a muscular man leaning on a trunk was found,” Eisenberg told Discovery News. Examination of the statue remains suggested a height of over 6 feet, but there were no indications related to the identity of the subject.

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The gold pendant found with the skeletal remains of a woman under the earthquake-caused debris of the Basilica of Antiochia Hippos. Credit Michael Eisenberg and the Hippos-Sussita Excavation Project

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Near these beautiful excavators, the right leg of the Roman statue found in the earthquake destruction of the Roman bathhouse. Credit Michael Eisenberg and the Hippos-Sussita Excavation Project

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The excavated remains of the Roman Basilica. Credit Michael Eisenberg and the Hippos-Sussita Excavation Project

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The excavations have shown that Hippos underwent a period of rebuiding after the first, 363 CE earthquake, but there was a gap of about 20 years before reconstruction occurred in at least some sections of the city. This was indicated by dozens of coins found in Byzantine construction about three feet above the Roman Basilica remains dated to about 383 CE., with no intervening reconstruction. The bathhouse was never rebuilt at its original location but another bathhouse was built later about 500 ft north-east.

The excavated evidence from previous seasons combined with the most recent finds are now beginning to paint a picture of a Roman/Hellenistic city before, during, and after two major earthquakes. “Finally the findings are coming together to form a clear historical-archeological picture,” Eisenberg told the Jerusalem Post.

Established initially by the Seleucids as a Greco-Roman enclave, Antiochia Hippos once controlled two port facilities on the lake and its surrounding countryside. Hippos was part of the “Decapolis“, a group of ten cities in Roman Palestine that were maintained as Greco-Roman cultural islands in the Near East. The damage the latest, 749 CE earthquake caused Hippos was so severe that it was left to the ages with no succeeding settlement and, coupled with its relative isolation and enduring basaltic construction, it was preserved much like it was left in the 8th century for today’s archaeologists to explore.  Since the year 2000, a team of archaeologists, specialists, students and volunteers from the Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa and other institutions have been excavating the site.

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Above and below, aerial views of the ancient site of Hippos-Sussita. Credit Michael Eisenberg and the Hippos-Sussita Excavation Project

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Eisenberg hopes the team will find additional parts of the statue in the upcoming 2015 season once they clear more debris left by the earthquake. He and his team will also continue excavations at the Basilica, the Bastion (fortification), the Roman-Byzantine southern bathhouse, and the west decumanus maximus (the main east-west road of the city), in addition to preservation work on structures that have previously been exposed through the excavations.

More information about the Hippos-Sussita Excavation Project can be acquired at their website. They are currently calling for new particpants for the summer 2015 season, which begins July 19, 2015.

A detailed feature article about Hippos-Sussita and the excavations can also be found in Popular Archaeology Magazine.

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Snubbing its nose at long-held ethical standards established by the U.S. archaeological community, the St Louis Chapter of the Archaeological Society of America has placed entrusted Mesoamerican and Egyptian artifacts for sale on the antiquities market.

Recently consigned for sale at the Bonhams Auction House in London, the artifacts included the “Treasure of Harageh”( a tomb group from the ancient site of Harageh), an Egyptian alabaster-travertine headrest, a limestone double-sided relief fragment for Nefertiti (the ca. 1370 BC – ca. 1330 BC Royal Wife (chief consort) of Akhenaten, an Egyptian Pharaoh), a Maya effigy vase from the ancient site of Quirigua, Guatemala, and a Zapotec seated figural urn from the ancient site of Monte Albán, Mexico.

While the Treasure of Harageh has already been purchased ‘under the table’ by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, essentially ‘coming to the rescue’ within the rules of archaeological ethics and resulting in the items being withdrawn from sale, all other items remain on the auction block.

It is reported that the Governing Board of the St. Louis Chapter, a chartered society of the AIA but independently operated as a separately incorporated non-profit organization, made the decision to place the artifacts up for sale without the support or consent of the membership. “The Governing Board of the AIA [Archaeological Institute of America] at its meeting on October 25, 2014, in Providence, R.I., unanimously expressed its dismay at the recent sale of Egyptian artifacts by the AIA St. Louis Society in contravention of the ethical standards current in archaeology,” announced the AIA. “The decision of its Board of Directors to sell the objects was taken without consulting the AIA or the Society’s members, many of whom have expressed consternation at what has happened……..The AIA made every effort to determine a solution that would enable the objects to remain in St. Louis. Unfortunately, the St Louis Society rejected such an outcome. The AIA reserves all rights to take any action or actions available to it to address this situation.”

The local St. Louis Board has made no public comments on the issue as of this writing.

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One of the many locations of Bonhams. This one in the UK. David Stowell, Wikimedia Commons

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The sale of artifacts on the antiquities market, especially those with provenance (a record relating to their recovery in archaeological excavations or other contexts) has long been considered a crime from the perspective of the international archaeological community, and in many countries legislation and measures have been put in place to address antiquities trafficking. In a reinforcement of this, The Egypt Exploration Society, which has publicly condemned the sale action by the St. Louis Society, announced that “public museums offer the best hope that ancient objects are safeguarded against loss or deterioration to their condition, and that they will remain accessible to scholars and the wider public for study and enjoyment. Objects which are sold on the open market may be transferred to collections which are not required to provide such safeguards, and which have no obligations to make the material they contain accessible.”

“These Mesoamerican items are on the market, with their sterling provenance,” says Donna Yates, speaking specifically of the Pre-columbian artifacts. She is an archaeologist who specializes in antiquities trafficking at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research in Glasgow, Scotland. “They will likely go into a private collection and they will inspire future sales of dirty [illicitly acquired and/or sold] Mesoamerican antiquities. And, let me repeat, almost all of the Mesoamerican antiquities on the market are dirty in some way.”

Donna speaks of a serious problem when it comes to the trade and sale of pre-Columbian objects. But the problem also applies to the care and management of all objects representing a collective world heritage, be it Egyptian, Mesoamerican, Mesopotamian, Chinese, or any other region in the world with an ancient pedigree.

“The AIA believes that it is the responsibility of all to protect and preserve the record of the past for the benefit of people today and in the future,” announced the AIA in an affirmation of its principles. “Disposing of artifacts through a public sale puts those artifacts at risk of being removed from public access.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Stonehenge  Julie Anne Workman, Wikimedia Commons

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

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

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

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

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Panoramic view of Göbekli Tepe  Rolf Cosar, Wikimedia Commons

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

Says Dr. Miriam Kolar, leader of the study and an expert on the human perception of sound in cultural contexts: 

”At Chavín, we have discovered acoustic evidence for selective sound transmission between the site’s Lanzon monolith and the Circular Plaza: an architectural acoustic filter system that favors sound frequencies of the Chavín pututus [conch-shell trumpets] and human voice.”

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

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View of Chavín de Huántar  Sharon odb, Wikimedia Commons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also adapted and edited from a Cell Press news release.

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

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

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

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

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Cuncaicha Rock Shelter. Courtesy Kurt Rademaker

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Excavations at Cuncaicha Rock Shelter. Courtesy Kurt Rademaker

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

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

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

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

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

The detailed study report is published in the journal Science.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

**http://trackingourancestors.com/

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Travel and learn with Far Horizons.

Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about.  AND MORE:

On the go?  Get the smartphone version of Popular Archaeology as an app or as an ebook.

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.