DICKINSON COLLEGE (Carlisle, Pa.) – Researchers studying lead white pigments on Andean ceremonial drinking vessels known as qeros have found new similarities among these artifacts that could help museums, conservators, historians and scholars better understand the timeline and production of these culturally significant items during the colonial period (1532-1821). In a study published in the journal Heritage Science, researchers used isotope measurements of lead white pigments in the decorative patterns on 20 colonial qeros to reveal linkages among vessels that were unknown previously.
The analysis identified only three isotope signatures among the lead white pigments decorating the qeros. Two of these isotopic signatures, present on a total of eight qeros, are the same as found in lead white paints used in European artwork from the same period. This match suggests these qeros are decorated with pigments imported to the Andes from Europe. The third signature, found on 12 of the qeros, suggests that the lead white was manufactured locally in the Andes.
The analysis was carried out by Allison Curley, a former Dickinson College undergraduate who is now a graduate student in earth & environmental sciences at the University of Michigan, and her mentor, geochemist Alyson Thibodeau, assistant professor of earth sciences at Dickinson, along with a team of researchers from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the UCLA/Getty Program in Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials; and the American Museum of Natural History.
“Little is known about the history of colonial qeros now in museum or private collections. The results could lead to a better understanding of the objects’ chronology and production,” explained Thibodeau. “For example, it is possible that qeros made earlier in the colonial period are decorated with European lead white, while qeros made later are decorated with lead white made from Andean ores. Further, the results strongly suggest some form of centralization in pigment acquisition, manufacture and distribution in the colonial period.”
“The consistency of the data was both surprising and satisfying,” said Curley, who has been collaborating with Thibodeau on this project since 2017. “It is exciting to see geochemistry provide insights into some longstanding historical and archaeological questions, and I was absolutely thrilled to present these findings to the Society for American Archaeology and to the conservators at the Smithsonian.”
“It’s important for those studying qeros all over the world to have a better understanding of the Andean people who made and used qeros during a time of colonial rule,” said Emily Kaplan, conservator for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, which has the largest collection of qeros in the United States. Kaplan hopes the research will lead to more radiocarbon dating, which will reveal more about the chronology of qero production. “Style and iconography have been used to help establish production timelines, but there’s a lot of guesswork involved,” she said.
Ceremonial drinking vessels have been used for toasting rituals in the Andes for millennia. Wooden qeros made in the colonial period were typically fabricated in identical pairs to make ceremonial toasts for social, political and religious occasions. These items retain their cultural significance to this day and are recognized as a symbol of the Inka Empire. Because they provide a window into the Andean indigenous colonial experience, qeros have been studied by art historians, archaeologists and anthropologists.
Lead researcher Allison Curley with qeros from the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Alyson Thibodeau
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Emily Kaplan using portable X-Ray Fluorescence to detect elements in pigments on a qero at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. NMAI staff
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A qero from the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Alyson Thibodeau
UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH—People are very skilled with their hands, but take a very long time to learn various dexterous abilities. It takes babies generally around five months before they can purposely grip an object. Learning more complicated skills such as eating with fork and knife or tying one’s shoelaces can take another five to six years. By that age, many other primate species already have offspring of their own. Why do we take so much longer than our closest relatives to learn fine motor skills?
Brain development in primates follows fixed patterns
Sandra Heldstab, an evolutionary biologist in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Zurich, and her colleagues Karin Isler, Caroline Schuppli and Carel van Schaik observed 36 different primate species over a period of more than seven years to try to answer this question. She studied 128 young animals in 13 European zoos from birth until the age at which they had reached adult-level dexterity. What surprised her was that all species learned their respective manual skills in exactly the same order. “Our results show that the neural development follows extremely rigid patterns – even in primate species that differ greatly in other respects,” says Heldstab.
Large brain needed for dexterity
The researchers found, however, big differences in the specific fine motor skills of adults from different primate species. Large-brained species such as macaques, gorillas or chimpanzees can solve much more complex tasks using their hands than primates with small brains such as lemurs or marmosets. “It is no coincidence that we humans are so good at using our hands and using tools, our large brains made it possible. A big brain equals great dexterity,” says Heldstab.
Humans develop fine motor skills later than primates
Dexterity comes at a cost, however: In species with large brains like humans, it takes a long time for infants to learn even the simplest hand and finger movements. “It’s not just because we are learning more complex skills than lemurs or callitrichids, for example. It’s mainly because we do not begin learning these skills until much later,” says Heldstab. The researchers think that the reason for this may be that the larger brains of humans are less well developed at birth.
Essential to have enough time to learn
In addition, learning takes time and is inefficient, and it is the parents who pay for this until their offspring are independent. “Our study shows once again that in the course of evolution, only mammals that live a long time and have enough time to learn were able to develop a large brain and complex fine motor skills including the ability to use tools. This makes it clear why so few species could follow our path and why humans could become the most technologically accomplished organism on this planet,” concludes Sandra Heldstab.
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Great apes like these bonobos have big brains like humans and can therefore learn very skillful dexterity. Image: Sandra Heldstab, Zoologisch-Botanischer Garten Wilhelma, Stuttgart
UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN THE FACULTY OF HEALTH AND MEDICAL SCIENCES—The fatal disease smallpox is older and more widespread than scientists so far have proved. A new study by an international team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Cambridge shows that the Vikings also suffered from smallpox.
Through the ages, the highly infectious disease smallpox has killed hundreds of millions of people. But it is unclear exactly when the disease emerged. There has been found evidence of smallpox from individuals from the 17th century while written records suggest the disease is much older.
Now a new study shows that the disease dates 1,000 years further back in time than previously shown. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) and the University of Cambridge have found proof that smallpox also existed in the Viking Age. The new results have been published in the scientific journal Science.
“We have found the oldest evidence of smallpox. Moreover, it seems to have been surprisingly common as early as in the Viking Age,” says Associate Professor Martin Sikora, Globe Institute, UCPH, and the University of Cambridge. He continues:
“Smallpox is the infection in the world that has killed most people. For that reason alone, it is very important and interesting to know how the disease developed. It gives us a unique opportunity to understand the viruses’ evolution: How did it change and become the pathogen that we know of today.”
Widespread in Northern Europe
The researchers have studied and analyzed the DNA of 13 individuals from Northern Europe infected with smallpox. The samples are 1,000 years older than the previous oldest sample known to have been infected based on ancient DNA, and they thus push the timeline for smallpox further back in time.
The study also shows the disease has been more widespread than previously assumed. The general idea used to be that smallpox was not endemic to Northern Europe during that time period.
“We show that not only was it endemic in Europe, but it was actually quite widespread in Northern Europe already at the year 600. That means that the disease was almost certainly far more established at a much earlier age than previously thought,” says Professor Eske Willerslev, Globe Institute, UCPH.
The researchers have also discovered that the viruses circulating during the Viking Age were distinct from their modern counterparts, and not directly ancestral to the viruses that caused the last big outbreak of smallpox in the 20th century.
“They share a common ancestor, but they also have unique features that differentiate them from the ones circulating later on in history. It turns out that the viruses we have found were some of these very, very early and different versions of the devastating pathogens known from the 20th century. It is the first time we can trace these early smallpox viruses and compare their genomes and mutations and see how the disease evolved over time,” says Eske Willerslev.
Catalogue of Mutations
Even though the disease has been eradicated today, it is still very useful to know how it developed and mutated through the ages.
Smallpox is a so-called poxvirus, a large family of viruses with many different types infecting a diverse set of host species. One such example is monkeypox, which typically infects monkeys but has also been known to cause a disease similar to smallpox in humans. It is therefore useful to known how other types of poxviruses mutate and survive.
“When we know how the disease mutated through time, it gives us an opportunity to put together a catalogue of how these pathogens might mutate in the future: What mutations and combinations make such a pathogen viable and successful? If they had those mutations in the past, they can most likely get them again.”
“It is one of a few examples where ancient genetic research has direct implications for present-day and future health,” says Martin Sikora.
PLOS—The diets of ancient foxes were influenced by humans, and these small carnivores might be tracers of human activity over time, according to a study* published July 22, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Chris Baumann of the University of Tübingen, Germany and colleagues.
Foxes love leftovers. In the wild, foxes regularly feed on scraps left behind by larger predators like bears and wolves, but the closer foxes live to human civilization, the more of their diet is made up of foods that humans leave behind. In this study, Baumann and colleagues hypothesized that if this commensal relationship goes back to ancient times, then foxes might be useful indicators of human impact in the past.
The authors compared ratios of Carbon and Nitrogen isotopes between the remains of various herbivores, large carnivores, and red and Arctic foxes from several archaeological sites in southwest Germany dating to the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. At sites older than 42,000 years, when Neanderthals sparsely occupied the region, fox diets were similar to their local large carnivores. But in the younger sites, as Homo sapiens became common in the area, foxes developed a more unique diet consisting largely of reindeer, which are too big for foxes to hunt but which are known to have been important game for ancient humans of the time.
These results suggest that during the Upper Palaeolithic, these foxes made a shift from feeding on scraps left by local large predators to eating food left behind by humans. This indicates that foxes’ reliance on human food goes back a good 42,000 years. The authors propose that, with further studies investigating this fox-human relationship, ancient fox diets may be useful indicators of human impact on ecosystems over time.
The authors add: “Dietary reconstructions of Ice Age foxes have shown that early modern humans had an influence on the local ecosystem as early as 40,000 years ago. The more humans populated a particular region, the more the foxes adapted to them.”
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Summary figure for the commensal fox hypothesis. The blue area marks the impact of humans on dietary resources. For low δ15N foxes, humans had no influence, while for intermediate δ15N foxes they had a very strong influence (restricted diet). High δ15N foxes may be influenced (e.g. by scavenging at kill sites) or may be of natural origin (e.g. by scavenging from megafauna that died naturally). Baumann et al, 2020 (PLOS ONE, CC BY 4.0)
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*Baumann C, Bocherens H, Drucker DG, Conard NJ (2020) Fox dietary ecology as a tracer of human impact on Pleistocene ecosystems. PLoS ONE 15(7): e0235692. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235692
University of Cambridge and University of Copenhagen—A cave in a remote part of Mexico was visited by humans around 30,000 years ago – 15,000 years earlier than people were previously thought to have reached the Americas.
Painstaking excavations of Chiquihuite Cave, located in a mountainous area in northern Mexico controlled by drug cartels, uncovered 1,900 stone tools from a small section of the high-altitude cave.
Archaeological analysis of the tools and DNA analysis of the sediment in the cave uncovered a new story of the colonization of the Americas which now traces evidence of the first Americans back to 25,000-30,000 years ago.
The results, which have been published in Nature today (July 22 2020), challenge the commonly held theory that the Clovis people were the first human inhabitants of the Americas 15,000 years ago.
DNA scientist Professor Eske Willerslev, of St John’s College, University of Cambridge, and director of The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, University of Copenhagen, led the study with archaeologist Dr Ciprian Ardelean, of the University of Zacatecas in Mexico.
Professor Willerslev said: “For decades people have passionately debated when the first humans entered the Americas. Chiquihuite Cave will create a lot more debate as it is the first site that dates the arrival of people to the continent to around 30,000 years ago – 15,000 years earlier than previously thought. These early visitors didn’t occupy the cave continuously, we think people spent part of the year there using it as a winter or summer shelter, or as a base to hunt during migration. This could be the Americas oldest ever hotel.”
The 10-year long research project raises more questions about the early humans who lived in the Americas than it solves.
Dr Ardelean said: “We don’t know who they were, where they came from or where they went. They are a complete enigma. We falsely assume that the indigenous populations in the Americas today are direct descendants from the earliest Americans, but now we do not think that is the case.
“By the time the famous Clovis population entered America, the very early Americans had disappeared thousands of years before. There could have been many failed colonizations that were lost in time and did not leave genetic traces in the population today.”
Chiquihuite Cave is a high-altitude site, 2750 meters above sea level. Nearly 2000 stone tools and small tool fragments, known as flakes, were discovered. DNA analysis of the plant and animal remains from the sediment packed around the tools in the cave dates the tools and the human occupation of the site to 25,000-30,000 years ago. Human DNA was not found which adds weight to the theory that the early people didn’t stay for long in the cave.
Dr Mikkel Winther Pedersen, a geneticist from the University of Copenhagen and one of the first authors of the paper, said: “We identified DNA from a wide range of animals including black bears, rodents, bats, voles and even kangaroo rats. We think these early people would probably have come back for a few months a year to exploit reoccurring natural resources available to them and then move on. Probably when herds of large mammals would have been in the area and who had little experience with humans so they would have been easy prey. The location of Chiquihuite Cave definitely rewrites what has conventionally been taught in history and archaeology and shows that we need to rethink where we look for sites of the earliest people in Americas.”
The Stone Tools
As far back as 30,000 years ago, humans had already developed techniques for producing tools. In this Mexican cave, researchers found 1,900 stone tools.
The unique feature of the Chiquihuite Cave is the “floor”, which consists of six layers of detritus and dust – all in all, a ten-foot column of ancient remains – which is so compressed and stable that by using various advanced measuring methods, it has been possible to date the layers one by one, from top to bottom.
Each layer has contained deposits of stone tools such as knives, scrapers and arrowheads, which the researchers have also been able to date.
“The cave finds are extremely interesting. These archaeological finds are so far the oldest in America. And the excavated stone tools are of a type unique to America,” Professor at Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Mexico, Ciprian F. Ardelean, states.
Ice Cap Across North America
Until now, science has assumed that the earliest immigration to America took place approx. 15,000 years ago. At the time, a narrow opening in the ice along the northern Pacific coastline was created, which made it possible to walk from Siberia onto the American continent.
At the time, there were no other access routes to the continent, because North America was covered by a thick ice cap, which only later – approx. 13,000 years ago – melted enough to enable passage.
30,000 years ago, when the first stone tools were left in the Chiquihuite Cave, the massive ice cap had not yet covered all of North America, which means that it would have been possible to walk from Siberia and down through the American continent, Eske Willerslev explains.
The Chiquihuite Cave site is very difficult to reach and would have been a good vantage point for the early people to defend themselves from as they could look out for miles over the valley without being seen. It is in an area of Mexico that is now controlled by drugs cartels. The academics were escorted by armed police to the base of the mountain before they made their way up to the cave on foot.
Dr Pedersen said: “It was an unforgettable experience. It is a very unsafe place to travel so we were accompanied by Mexican police officers in armoured cars to the foot of the mountain. We left before sunrise to climb up to the cave so that we weren’t spotted.”
The visiting DNA scientists slept in the cave during their research visit and over the past 10 years Dr Ardelean has spent a number of months living in the cave to carry out the painstaking excavations.
Dr Ardelean added: “The peopling of the Americas is the last holy grail in modern archaeology. Unconventional sites need to be taken seriously and we need to go out and intentionally look for them. This site doesn’t solve anything, it just shows that these early sites exist. We are dealing with a handful of humans from thousands of years ago so we cannot expect the signals to be very clear. We have literally dug deeper than anyone has done in the past.”
The earliest human DNA from the Americas currently remains at 12,400 years ago, Dr Ardelean explained: “We have shown the previously long held date of human presence is not the oldest date for populating the Americas, it is the explosion date of populating the Americas.”
Professor Willerslev concluded: “I will never forget being part of this research, it was an unbelievable experience. The implications of these findings are as important, if not more important, than the finding itself. This is only the start of the next chapter in the hotly debated early peopling of the Americas.”
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View of the Sierra El Astillero mountains where the Chiquihuite cave was found in 2012. Devlin A. Gandy
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Team members entering the Chiquihuite cave. Devlin A. Gandy
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Assistant professor Mikkel Winther Pedersen from the University of Copenhagen sampling the cave sediments for DNA. Devlin A. Gandy
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Assistant professor Mikkel Winther Pedersen with team members carefully sampling the different cultural layers in the cave. Mads Thomsen
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Assistant professor Mikkel Winther Pedersen with team members carefully sampling the different cultural layers in the cave. Devlin A. Gandy
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Stone tool found below the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) layer, within Stratigraphic Component C, at Chiquihuite Cave. Ciprian Ardelean.
UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA—Homo Neanderthalensis did not become extinct because of changes in climate. At least, this did not happen to the several Neanderthal groups that lived in the western Mediterranean 42,000 years ago. A research group of the University of Bologna came to this conclusion after a detailed paleoclimatic reconstruction of the last ice age through the analysis of stalagmites sampled from some caves in Apulia, Italy.
The researchers focused on the Murge karst plateau in Apulia, where Neanderthals and Homo sapiens coexisted for at least 3,000 years, from approximately 45,000 to 42,000 years ago. This study was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Data extracted from the stalagmites showed that climate changes that happened during that time span were not particularly significant. “Our study shows that this area of Apulia appears as a ‘climate niche’ during the transition from Neanderthals to Homo sapiens” explains Andrea Columbu, researcher and first author of this study. “It doesn’t seem possible that significant climate changes happened during that period, at least not impactful enough to cause the extinction of Neanderthals in Apulia and, by the same token, in similar areas of the Mediterranean”.
THE CLIMATE CHANGE HYPOTHESIS
The hypothesis that a changing climate was a factor in Neanderthals extinction (that happened in Europe nearly 42,000 years ago) found considerable support among the scientific community. According to this theory, during the last ice age, sharp and rapid changes in climate were a decisive factor in Neanderthals’ extinction because of the increasingly cold and dry weather.
We can find confirmation of these sharp changes in the analysis of ice cores from Greenland and from other paleoclimatic archives of continental Europe. However, when it comes to some Mediterranean areas where Neanderthals had lived since 100,000 years ago, the data tell a different story. The Western Mediterranean is rich in prehistoric findings and, until now, no one ever carried out a paleoclimatic reconstruction of these Neanderthal-occupied areas.
THE IMPORTANCE OF STALAGMITES
Where can we find answers about the past climate of the Western Mediterranean? The research group of the University of Bologna turned to the Murge plateau in Apulia. “Apulia is key to our understanding of anthropological movements: we know that both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens lived there approximately 45,000 years ago”, says Andrea Columbu. “Very few other areas in the world saw both species co-existing in a relatively small space. This makes the Murge plateau the perfect place to study the climate and the bio-cultural grounds of the transition from Neanderthal to Sapiens”.
How is it possible to provide a climate reconstruction of such a remote period? Stalagmites have the answer. These rock formations rise from the floor of karst caves thanks to ceiling water drippings. “Stalagmites are excellent paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental archives”, explains Jo De Waele, research coordinator and professor at the University of Bologna. “Since stalagmites form through rainwater dripping, they provide unquestionable evidence of the presence or absence of rain. Moreover, they are made of calcite, which contains carbon and oxygen isotopes. The latter provide precise information about how the soil was and how much it rained during the formation period of stalagmites. We can then cross these pieces of information with radiometric dating, that provide an extremely precise reconstruction of the phases of stalagmites’ formation”.
A (RELATIVELY) STABLE CLIMATE
The pace at which stalagmites formed is the first significant result of this study. Researchers found out that Apulian stalagmites showed a consistent pace of dripping in the last and previous ice ages. This means that no abrupt change in climate happened during the millennia under investigation. A draught would have been visible in the stalagmites.
Among all the stalagmites that were analyzed, one was particularly relevant. Researchers sampled this 50-cm long stalagmite in the Pozzo Cucù cave, in the Castellana Grotte area (Bari) and they carried out 27 high-precision datings and 2,700 analyses of carbon and oxygen stable isotopes. According to dating, this stalagmite formed between 106,000 and 27,000 years ago. This stalagmite represents the longest timeline of the last ice age in the western Mediterranean and in Europe. Moreover, this stalagmite did not show any trace of abrupt changes in climate that might have caused Neanderthals’ extinction.
“The analyses we carried out show little variation in rainfall between 50,000 and 27,000 years ago, the extent of this variation is not enough to cause alterations in the flora inhabiting the environment above the cave”, says Jo De Waele. “Carbon isotopes show that the bio-productivity of the soil remained all in all consistent during this period that includes the 3,000 years-long coexistence between Sapiens and Neanderthals. This means that significant changes in flora and thus in climate did not happen”.
THE TECHNOLOGY HYPOTHESIS
The results seem to show that the dramatic changes in the climate of the last ice age had a different impact on the Mediterranean area than in continental Europe and Greenland. This may rule out the hypothesis that climate changes are responsible for Neanderthals dying out.
How do we explain their extinction after a few millennia of coexistence with Homo sapiens? Stefano Benazzi, a palaeontologist at the University of Bologna and one of the authors of the paper, provides an answer to this question. “The results we obtained corroborate the hypothesis, put forward by many scholars, that the extinction of Neanderthals had to do with technology”, says Benazzi. “According to this hypothesis, the Homo sapiens hunted using a technology that was far more advanced than Neanderthals’, and this represented a primary reason to Sapiens’ supremacy over Neanderthals, that eventually became extinct after 3,000 years of co-existence”.
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Researchers sampled this 50-cm long stalagmite in the Pozzo Cucù cave, in the Castellana Grotte area (Bari) and they carried out 27 high-precision datings and 2,700 analyses of carbon and oxygen stable isotopes. O. Lacarbonara
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THE AUTHORS OF THE STUDY
The study was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution with the title “Speleothem record attests to stable environmental conditions during Neanderthal- modern human turnover in southern Italy”. Representing the University of Bologna, we have Andrea Columbu, Veronica Chiarini and Jo De Waele from the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, and Stefano Benazzi from the Department of Cultural Heritage.
Other scholars also participated in the study: from the University of Innsbruck (Austria) where the isotopic analyses were carried out, from Melbourne University (Australia) and Xi’an Jiaotong University (China), that carried out the radiometric dating.
Grotte di Castellana, the Apulian Speleology Association and, for the major part, local speleology groups provided funding for this study.
UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK—Thousands of years ago the UK was physically joined to the rest of Europe through an area known as Doggerland. However, a marine inundation took place during the mid-holocene, separating the British landmass from the rest of Europe, which is now covered by the North Sea.
Scientists from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick have studied sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) from sediment deposits in the southern North Sea, an area which has not previously been linked to a tsunami that occurred 8150 years ago.
The paper, led by the University of Bradford and involving Universities of Warwick, Wales St. Trinity David, St. Andrews, Cork, Aberystwyth, Tartu as well as the Smithsonian and Natural History Museum, ‘Multi-Proxy Characterisation of the Storegga Tsunami and Its Impact on the Early Holocene Landscapes of the Southern North Sea’, published in the Journal Geosciences, sees Life Scientists from the University of Warwick work specifically on the sedimentary ancient DNA from Doggerland.
A number of innovative breakthroughs were achieved by the University of Warwick scientists in terms of analysing the sedaDNA. One of these was the concept of biogenomic mass, where for the first time they were able to see the how the biomass changes with events, evidence of this presented in the paper refers to the large woody mass of trees from the tsunami found in the DNA of the ancient sediment.
New ways of authenticating the sedaDNA were also developed, as current methods of authentication do not apply to sedaDNA which has been damaged whilst under the sea for thousands of years because there is too little information for each individual species. Researchers therefore came up with a new way, metagenomic assessment methodology, whereby the characteristic damage found at the ends of ancient DNA molecules is collectively analyzed across all species rather than one.
Alongside this a key part of analyzing the sedaDNA is to determine whether or not it was deposited in situ or has moved over time. This led researchers to develop statistical methods to establish which scenario was appropriate, using stratigraphic integrity they were able to determine that the sedaDNA in the sediment deposits had not moved a massive amount since deposition by assessing the biomolecules vertical movement in the core column of the sedaDNA.
Identifying which organisms the ancient fragmented molecules of DNA came from is also challenging because often there is nothing to directly compare. In a fourth innovation the researchers refined algorithms to define these regions of “dark phylogenetic space” from where organisms must have originated overcome this issue.
Professor Robin Allaby from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick comments: “This study represents an exciting milestone for sedimentary ancient DNA studies establishing a number of breakthrough methods to reconstruct an 8,150 year old environmental catastrophe in the lands that existed before the North Sea flooded them away into history.”
Professor Vince Gaffney from the School of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences at the University of Bradford said: “Exploring Doggerland, the lost landscape underneath the North Sea, is one of the last great archaeological challenges in Europe. This work demonstrates that an interdisciplinary team of archaeologists and scientists can bring this landscape back to life and even throw new light on one of prehistory’s great natural disasters, the Storegga Tsunami.
“The events leading up to the Storegga tsunami have many similarities to those of today. Climate is changing and this impacts on many aspects of society, especially in coastal locations.”
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS—In American history, we learn that the arrival of Spanish explorers led by Hernando de Soto in the 1500s was a watershed moment resulting in the collapse of Indigenous tribes and traditions across the southeastern United States.
While these expeditions unquestionably resulted in the deaths of countless Indigenous people and the relocation of remaining tribes, new research from Washington University in St. Louis provides evidence that Indigenous people in Oconee Valley — present-day central Georgia — continued to live and actively resist European influence for nearly 150 years.
The findings, published July 15 in American Antiquity, speak to the resistance and resilience of Indigenous people in the face of European insurgence, said Jacob Lulewicz, a lecturer in archaeology in Arts & Sciences and lead author.
“The case study presented in our paper reframes the historical contexts of early colonial encounters in the Oconee Valley by way of highlighting the longevity and endurance of Indigenous Mississippian traditions and rewriting narratives of interactions between Spanish colonizers and Native Americans,” Lulewicz said.
It also draws into question the motives behind early explanations and interpretations that Euro-Americans proposed about Indigenous earthen mounds — platforms built out of soil, clay and stone that were used for important ceremonies and rituals.
‘Myths were purposively racist’
“By the mid-1700s, less than 100 years after the abandonment of the Dyar mound [now submerged under Lake Oconee], explanations for the non-Indigenous origins of earthen mounds were being espoused. As less than 100 years would have passed between the Indigenous use of mounds and these explanations, it could be argued that the motives for these myths were purposively racist, denying what would have been a recent collective memory of Indigenous use in favor of explanations that stole, and disenfranchised, these histories from contemporary Indigenous peoples,” Lulewicz said.
The Dyar mound was excavated by University of Georgia archaeologists in the 1970s to make way for a dam. Lulewicz and co-authors — Victor D. Thompson, professor of archaeology and director of the Laboratory of Archaeology at the University of Georgia; James Wettstaed, archaeologist at Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests; and Mark Williams, director emeritus of the Laboratory of Archaeology at the University of Georgia — received funding from the USDA Forest Service to re-date the platform mound, which contained classic markers of Indigenous rituals and ceremonies.
Using advanced radiocarbon dating techniques and complex statistical models, modern-day archaeologists are able to effectively construct high-resolution, high-precision chronologies. In many cases, they can determine, within a 10- to 20-year range, dates of things that happened as far back as 1,000 years ago.
“Radiocarbon dating is really important, not just for getting a date to see when things happened, but for understanding the tempo of how things changed throughout time and really understanding the complex histories of people over hundreds of years,” Lulewicz said. “In archaeology, it’s really easy to group things in long periods of time, but it would be false to say that nothing changed over those 500 years.”
Their research yielded 20 new dates from up and down the mound, which provided a refined perspective on the effects that early Indigenous-colonizer encounters did, and did not, have on the Indigenous people and their traditions.
Missing from the mound was any sign of European artifacts, which is one of the reasons why archaeologists originally believed sites in the region were abruptly abandoned just after their first encounters with Spanish colonizers. “Not only did the ancestors of Muscogee (Creek) people continue their traditions atop the Dyar mound for nearly 150 years after these encounters, but they also actively rejected European things,” Lulewicz said.
According to Lulewicz, the Dyar mound does not represent an isolated hold-over after contact with European colonizers. There are several examples of platform mounds that were used beyond the 16th century, including the Fatherland site associated with the Natchez in Louisiana, Cofitachequi in South Carolina and a range of towns throughout the Lower Mississippi Valley.
“However, the mound at Dyar represents one of the only confirmed examples, via absolute dating, of continued Mississippian traditions related to mound-use and construction to date.”
Today, members of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, descendants of the Mississippians who built platform mounds like the one at Dyar, live in Oklahoma. “We have a great, collaborative relationship with archaeologists of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Historic and Cultural Preservation Department, so we sent them the paper to review. It was really well received. They saw, reflected in that paper, a lot of the traditions they still practice in Oklahoma and were generous enough to contribute commentary that bolstered the results presented in the paper,” he said.
“This is where the archaeology that we write becomes so important in the present. … Without this type of work, we are contributing to the disenfranchisement of Indigenous peoples from their history.”
“Of course, they already knew many of the things we ‘discovered,’ but it was still meaningful to be able to reaffirm their ancestral link to the land.”
In the end, Lulewicz said this is the most important part of the paper. “We are writing about real human lives — Indigenous lives that we have historically treated very poorly and who continue to be treated poorly today in some cases. With the use of advanced radiocarbon dating and the development of really high resolution chronologies, we are able to more effectively reinject lives into narratives of the past.”
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Jacob Lulewicz, lecturer in archaeology at Washington Universiity in St. Louis, studies southeastern/midwestern ethnohistory and archaeology including Indigenous-colonizer dynamics; social networks and sociopolitics. WUSTL
Science Advances—Fecal biomarkers confirm that fossilized feces discovered in Oregon’s Paisley Caves originated from humans, with some samples dating back more than 12,000 years, according to a new study. While previous mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analyses suggested the specimens came from some of the earliest humans to occupy the Americas, Lisa-Marie Shillito and colleagues provide greater certainty about the ancient turds’ identities by analyzing lipid biomarkers, which are less sensitive to contamination, although they provide less detailed information. The researchers conclude that both methods – analyzing mitochondrial DNA and lipid biomarkers – may be used in tandem as scientists search prehistoric poo for clues about when the first people arrived in the Americas, how they got here, and how they adapted to its varying terrain. Dung samples such as those from Paisley Caves can help fill in the blanks about the lives of ancient humans when skeletal remains are scarce. Earlier studies of some of the dung samples were called into question since some of the mtDNA recovered from them could have leached into the samples from later occupants of the cave who defecated there, or it could have been derived from other species that used the cave. To explore whether lipid biomarkers in the fossilized feces could help solve the mystery of who deposited them in the cave, Shllito et al. sampled 21 specimens that were previously identified through mtDNA analysis to determine their sterol and bile acid content. They next compared lipids derived from one dung sample with lipids from the surrounding sediment, finding distinctly different distributions that suggest minimal leaching occurred between the dung and its environment. Ultimately, the researchers found that the identities of 13 of the fossilized feces agreed with previously reported classifications based on mitochondrial DNA, the majority of which came from humans. The oldest dated back to about 12,200 years ago, demonstrating that humans have occupied the Paisley Caves since at least that time. The findings support the theory that humans first settled in America before the arrival of the ancient Clovis people, who were long thought to be the ancestors of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
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View of the Paisley Caves outcrop from the base camp.Dr. John Blong
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Outside the Paisley Caves entrance. Dr. John Blong
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The excavation team discussing the sediments. Dr. John Blong
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Dr. Lisa-Marie Shillito collecting. Dr. John Blong
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Dr. Helen Whelton working on samples in the lab. Dr. John Blong
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Article Source A Science Advances news release. Science Advances is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.
PLOS—The Hyksos, who ruled during the 15th Dynasty of ancient Egypt, were not foreign invaders, but a group who rose to power from within, according to a study* published July 8, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Chris Stantis of Bournemouth University, UK and colleagues.
The Hyksos were a foreign dynasty that ruled parts of Egypt between approximately 1638-1530 BCE, the first instance of Egypt being ruled by individuals of a foreign origin. The common story is that the Hyksos were invaders from a far-off land, but this idea has been drawn into question. Archaeological evidence does link Hyksos culture with an origin in the Near East, but exactly how they rose to power is unclear.
In this study, Stantis and colleagues collected enamel samples from the teeth of 75 humans buried in the ancient Hyksos capital city of Tell el-Dab’a in the northeast Nile Delta. Comparing ratios of strontium isotopes in the teeth to environmental isotope signatures from Egypt and elsewhere, they assessed the geographic origins of the individuals who lived in the city. They found that a large percentage of the populace were non-locals who immigrated from a wide variety of other places. This pattern was true both before and during the Hyksos dynasty.
This pattern does not match the story of a sudden invasion from a single far-off land, but of a multi-cultural region where one internal group – the Hyksos – eventually rose to power after living there for generations. This is the first study to use archaeological chemistry to address the origins of the Hyksos rulers, but the authors note that more investigations and broader chemical techniques will be needed to identify the specific ancestries of the Hyksos and other non-local residents of Egypt.
Stantis adds: “Archaeological chemistry, specifically isotopic analysis, shows us first-generation migration during a time of major cultural transformations in ancient Egypt. Rather than the old scholastic theories of invasion, we see more people, especially women, migrating to Egypt before Hyksos rule, suggesting economic and cultural changes leading to foreign rule rather than violence.”
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Seal amulet with the name of the Hyksos pharoah Apophis. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0)
*Stantis C, Kharobi A, Maaranen N, Nowell GM, Bietak M, Prell S, et al. (2020) Who were the Hyksos? Challenging traditional narratives using strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis of human remains from ancient Egypt. PLoS ONE 15(7): e0235414. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235414
Stephanie Baker is a researcher at the Palaeo-Research Institute at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, and director of excavations and research at Drimolen.
South Africa has been a hotspot of fossil discovery since the first human ancestor fossil was found in the Taung (formerly Buxton-Norlim) Limeworks in 1924. The original discovery of the now famous Taung Child began a fossil journey that found its peak in a small area just north of Johannesburg, South Africa, now known as the Cradle of Humankind and recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. One of the first fossils discovered in the Cradle area, in 1938, was a partial skull (first found by a young boy, Gert Terblanche, who lived on the Kromdraai Farm) that Dr Robert Broom assigned to the species Paranthropus robustus.
Some 50 years later, another important Paranthropus site was discovered by Dr Andre Keyser, a South African palaeontologist and geologist — the Drimolen Fossil Site. The site is located almost directly in the middle of the demarcated Cradle boundaries and very quickly proved to be a site of high significance. After two years of excavation, Keyser discovered a pair of crania, designated DNH 7 and DNH 8 (or more romantically, Euridice and Orpheus, respectively). DNH 7 is the most complete cranium of the species thus far discovered and DNH 8 is a well preserved large male mandible with teeth. DNH 7 has become particularly significant since it was discovered that she was, in fact, a she. This was important because up until her discovery in 1994 and subsequent description in 2000, no other well-preserved crania of female Paranthropus had been discovered. Her diminutive, sagittal crest–lacking head gave scientists much needed insight into the sexual dimorphism of Paranthropus robustus and led to changing our understanding of the species’ lifestyles.
Since the initial description of DNH 7, multiple specimens of both Paranthropus and early Homo have been discovered here, making Drimolen one of the richest hominin-bearing deposits in South Africa. The site is geologically quite simple, unlike some of our neighboring sites, which feature multiple infills and members. The Drimolen deposit is made up of only one simple phreatic maze cave chamber, now exposed through years of surface erosion and later lime miner activity. The fossil deposits are clustered mainly along the western edge of the cave walls, where large breccia blocks and pinnacles still stand today, preserving clues of the original infill shape and cave entrance. Mining activity created what is now called the Central Excavation Area (CEA), where one large breccia block, formerly from the cave ceiling, is surrounded by decalcified sediments that are essentially ex situ. These deposits were the focus of the bulk of all previous excavations, directed by both Keyser and, later, Colin Menter.
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The Drimolen Main Quarry site under excavation. Therese van Wyk, University of Johannesburg.
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The Drimolen excavations and excavated fossils. Andy Herries
I first joined the project in 2011 as a student assistant and assumed the permit fully in 2017, alongside my co-permit holder, Prof Andy Herries. With this changeover in permit holders came a changeover in approach to the excavations. The primary area of focus moved to the western edges of the cave wall, both in the CEA and over the back of the pinnacle row. This change heralded a flurry of new discoveries of extremely well-preserved hominin fossils, including the recently published DNH 152 Paranthropus robustusmale specimen.
That publication included a second specimen of great importance — DNH 134. Thisfind is now described as the oldest Homo erectus specimen in the world (at 1.95 to 2.04 million years old), as well as the first recorded representative of the species in South Africa. DNH 134 has a fascinating discovery story and illustrates the complexity of the excavations, the difficulty of working with such highly fragmentary fossils, as well as the importance of including young researchers and students in major analysis. In June of 2015, the University of Johannesburg and La Trobe University palaeo-anthropological field season was underway. Students (both under- and postgraduate) had travelled to South Africa for the opportunity of field training and excavation experience at Drimolen. One of these students, Richard Curtis, was excavating a small area in the south west corner of the CEA when he began uncovering a cluster of skull fragments. The fragments were not immediately identifiable beyond saying they came from a skull. With this, I began the in-field reconstruction of this ancient puzzle.
It took a good number of days working alongside Richard to recover more fragments before some semblance of a shape took place. Eventually, I had two larger pieces with which to work. One was clearly the base of the cranium: the occipital and part of the foramen magnum. The other was the top of the skull. At first, there was no obvious link between these fragments — until one day, after Richard had collected a number of cranial pieces in a chunk of sediment. I sat that evening at the far end of the field school site dinner table, fully engrossed in my puzzle and completely ignoring the lecture happening at the other end of the room. One of the remarkably uninteresting and amorphous blob fragments recovered from the ground that same day turned out to be the bridge that linked the two larger fragments I had reconstructed. In that wonderful eureka moment, as the two pieces came together, I gasped — apparently far louder than I had intended, as the aforementioned lecture came to a very swift halt.
It was immediately clear that the small skull was that of a hominin, not of a baboon, as had previously been suggested along with buck, hyaena, and others. The next step was to figure out: what kind of hominin? Thereafter, the skull was entrusted to Jesse Martin, now a PhD candidate at La Trobe University in Melbourne Australia. After much comparison work in the Phillip V Tobias Fossil Hominid vault at the University of the Witwatersrand, Jesse made a difficult phone call to the rest of us. He found that the DNH 134 cranium was actually Homo erectus. We laughed, at first. Homo erectus had never been found in South Africa before and the likelihood that we would find it at Drimolen was low. At the time, we also didn’t have the absolute dates for the site, so we believed the deposit to be around 1.8 million years old, and some estimates had it even younger at around 1.5 million. By this time in the fossil record, Homo ergaster (the African cousin to erectus) was quite solidly established in East African, with beautiful specimens such as Nariokotome Boy (KNM-WT 15000; c. 1.6-1.5 Ma from Lake Turkana, Kenya), among others.
But after he fought his case, we were convinced! The overall cranial shape was convincingly Homo erectus. When viewed from above, it has the characteristic teardrop shape seen in all Homoerectus specimens. This shape is indicative of the beginnings of the larger, reorganized brain we see in modern examples of the genus Homo, to which modern humans belong, along with other Homo species. The brain size (~538 cc) is on the high end compared to both Australopithecus and Paranthropus, despite this specimen representing an individual juvenile. The brain size is smaller than the Mojokerto child from Indonesia (~630cc), a specimen of similar developmental age but much younger geologically (~1.8-1.2 Ma). This suggests that while the brain shape is forming early in the evolution of Homo erectus morphology, the size increase develops later.
Homo erectus is well-represented in the fossil record but also well-sampled from across many continents. They were highly adaptive and capable of transitioning across numerous diverse landscapes in very short – geologically speaking – periods of time. Discovering Homo erectus in southern Africa is another indicator that, firstly, we need to constantly be rethinking our understanding of human evolution, and secondly, it reconfirms this species’ incredible adaptive abilities. The next oldest location where Homo erectus was discovered—the famous Dmanisi site in the Republic of Georgia—was dated to approximately 1.8 Ma. These specimens, mostly adults, are a good 11 thousand kilometers away from Drimolen. It suggests that this species’ journey out of Africa took place in less that 200 thousand years, considered an unprecedented trip for early Pleistocene apes. This implies a high level of survivability, adaptability and certainly a good dose of curiosity.
La Trobe University PhD student Angeline Leece in front of fossil bearing brecccia at Drimolen. Jesse Martin
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Detailed side view of the DNH-134 Drimolen Homo erectus cranium. Dr. Matthew Caruana
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View of the DNH-134 cranium skull cap from above. Therese van Wyk, University of Johannesburg.
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Our Next Steps
Moving forward, the Drimolen team hopes to add to the sample. DNH 134 is a small child of around 1-3 years old, so recovering an adult specimen would be excellent. Adding to the Homo erectus finds at the site will aid to understanding the species and its evolution in southern Africa. We also need to go back through the hominin collection amassed thus far from the site and reassess some of those specimens previously assigned simply to ‘early Homo’. Even more important, the team hopes to work through a lot of the other fauna excavated from the site since its’ discovery in 1992. Each excavated fossil adds to our understanding of how Homo erectus, Paranthropus robustus and late-occurring Australopithecus all navigated this transitional landscape. We know that the environment was shifting over this time, so it marks a critical moment in our evolutionary history, potentially impacting the next step in the journey to becoming human.
Arianna Zakrzewski is an intern and writer for Popular Archaeology. She is also a graduate from Rhode Island College with a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology. She has had an interest in archaeology since elementary school, specifically Egyptology and the Classics. In recent years, she has also gained an interest in historical archaeology, and has spent time in the field working in St. Mary’s City, Maryland, participating in excavation and archival research. Most recently, she completed her MA in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University. She is currently focused on collections management and making archaeological discoveries accessible and exciting to the public.
When one thinks of prehistoric Native Americans, an image of small, mobile groups or tribes of hunter-gatherers immediately comes to mind. In truth, however, they were also very much a society of farmers, making their living within permanent settlements where a variety of crops or domesticated plants were grown and harvested. Now, a collaborative study conducted by researchers from the University of Connecticut (UConn), the University of Utah, Troy University, and California State University, Sacramento is examining the growth in agriculture 7,500 to 5,000 years ago among the ancient Native Americans and the social implications of this shift. The study focuses on the interior part of Eastern North America.
“There’s no good name for the region really, because it’s part of the lower mid-west and upper south east,” explains researcher and Ph.D. student Elic Weitzel of UConn. “We’re talking about states like Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio—this general region.” Such a study has never been conducted before.
Weitzel is pursuing a Ph.D. in anthropology, and although he is trained as an archaeologist, he thinks of himself as more of a “human ecologist.” Weitzel, along with his research team, have used pre-existing data sets collected by archaeologists over the years to reexamine this region and ask new questions about the growth and development of agriculture and the ways in which this shift changed the social climate of a region. “The cool thing about this research is that we didn’t actually do any excavations,” he explains. “This is all based on previous studies that archaeologists have done, and it’s part of this push toward big data in science disciplines at large. Archaeologists seem to be amassing these large data sets, and because of that increasing cooperation among researchers, people like me and my colleagues can now ‘mine’ that data and reanalyze things on a broader scale than any individual archaeologist would have been able to do in years past.”
Growth in agriculture
Using these existing data sets in archaeology and ecology, the research team examined the region and found that in using the ecological model, they were able to predict where prehistoric individuals should live on a landscape in relation to population density and the quality of different habitats. “We really applied that kind of ecological model to the archaeological data sets of where humans were living in the past on the landscape,” Weitzel explains. “What this predicts is that as the population density in an area increases, people are going to first live in the highest quality locations on the landscape. As the population density grows there, they are going to expand to the second highest quality location, and then the third highest quality location.” This pattern is what is observed before the introduction of farming in the region. It was a hunter-gatherer pattern of infilling the landscape.
“Then, when you have farming, there’s a bit of a reversal of that pattern,” Weitzel goes on. “All of the sudden you’ve got this new economic activity that really requires people to cooperate with each other. People start moving back into those high-quality locations they had previously left, so we see this actual increase with the metric of site quality that we see in the data.” With the shift toward farming taking place 7-7.5 thousand years ago came an incentive to live closer to other people and cooperate with other people in order to manage and maintain crops. “We used this ecological, theoretical model to make these predictions, and then looked at the locations of the sites themselves in reference to what’s called ‘net primary productivity,’” Weitzel explains. “This is essentially just the measure of energy availability in an environment. Essentially plants photosynthesize to produce energy, and you can do all sorts of things with satellite imagery nowadays where we can run these calculations and end up with an image of a landscape with net primary productivity calculated for all these different cells in this kind of image. We use that data and look where the sites were located, and just statistically analyzed the changes through time, and our findings really fit very well with this theoretical model that we came at it from.”
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Map depicting several key sites in the lower mid-west and upper south east; black dots depict sites analyzed in this study, while red, labeled dots depict sites with the earliest evidence for domestication in the region. Courtesy of Elic Weitzel.
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A schematic, hypothetical map used by researchers to visualize their habitation patterns by time period. Courtesy of Elic Weitzel.
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Some of the crops being domesticated by these groups would be familiar to people now, such as squash and sunflowers, but many other domesticated plants in this region still exist on the landscape in their wild forms and are unrecognizable to modern humans. “The nature of these plants was such that they were really best harvested quickly in the autumn, and so that’s what inspired this shift towards a new incentive to cooperate with people,” he explains. “Certainly, folks are always cooperating, but now that you’re trying to target crops, that inspires the shift toward [the greater] cooperation that we see.” But as we shift to domesticating and harvesting crops, we see several moving parts in these societies shift as well, namely the new need for defense. “Now that you’re targeting these crops that are on fixed locations on the landscape—unlike the animal population that moves around—you’ve got to start defending these crops, and your territory as a result.” Along with cooperation comes new forms of competition as well. “People are now defending their territories, they’re attacking other people, they’re launching raiding parties and they’re scalping and beheading and taking trophies from battle,” Weitzel goes on. “These two broad umbrellas of cooperation and competition really frame a lot of the later social changes that occurred within Native American society for a millennium afterwards. It is right at this time that you are also seeing a lot of shifts more broadly in how people are organizing themselves. A little later after this point in time is when you start seeing the appearance of social complexities and social hierarchy, and eventually later on you’ve got your famous Mississippian civilizations with their famous mound sites, but all of these changes are really undergirded by the more fundamental shift that occurred thousands of years earlier in the form of domestication and the management of crops that really lead to these two changes in cooperative and competitive dynamics.”
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Chenopod, a crop domesticated by humans in the region between 7-7.5 thousand years ago. Courtesy of Dr. Stephen B. Carmody.
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Maygrass, a crop domesticated by humans in the region between 7-7.5 thousand years ago. Courtesy of Dr. Stephen B. Carmody.
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Sumpweed, a crop domesticated by humans in the region between 7-7.5 thousand years ago. Courtesy of Dr. Stephen B. Carmody.
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Increase in inter-group violence
As these changes in cooperative and competitive dynamics come about, we can also observe an increase in violence, suggest the researchers. “With that shift toward becoming a farmer, we expected that sites were actually going to start aggregating together on the landscape, kind of clustering, and might be doing so in these high-quality locations,” Weitzel says. “Where they’re living on the landscape and how clustered and in which types of habitats they are can actually tell you something about how common-place it is for interpersonal cooperation, or perhaps intergroup competition at the same time.” By analyzing the available data, specifically the site distributions, the research team was able to pull together a data set on the frequency of “trophy taking” in the archaeological record. Trophy taking includes actions such as scalping, beheading, or dismemberment of some sort. Weitzel explains, “[With] certain groups, after some kind of battle would take place, a fight or conflict, the victors would remove body parts from the losers as a symbol that they won, and they were good warriors and fighters. The frequency of trophy taking in the archaeological record really coincides perfectly with the changes that we’re seeing in settlement patterns around 7-7.5 thousand years ago.” Evidence suggests that hunter-gatherer groups engaged in raiding and intergroup violence in North America, but there is no evidence that is known to us yet for this clear signature of trophy taking. “Before that [7-7.5 thousand years ago] you’ve got fractures and broken bones and imbedded projectile points, so there is violence for sure going on, but archaeologists have for a while now thought that there’s something different going on when you see this appearance of trophy taking.”
Much of the theoretical modeling of this study is informed by evolutionary theory, or the Darwinian idea of adaptation and fitness, according to Weitzel. The way people distribute themselves as a population across the landscape has to do with the individual choices people make based on their fitness, their reproductive success, the quality of the environment, and the access and opportunities available to them. “That kind of evolutionary thinking that we would apply to humans is often emphasized competitively, through violence and interpersonal competition and group competition, but it’s really important for us to remember that cooperation is just as important in terms of human evolution and human adaptation as competition is,” he says. These two dynamics, competition and cooperation, are fundamentally important and go hand in hand. “We are profoundly good at violence. There is, of course, a lot of discussion on this. We are capable of incredible, horrific acts of violence, but simultaneously, we are capable of incredible acts of cooperation. We must understand that these things are really two sides of the same coin; cooperation with your group members is often times necessary to compete with outsiders. That is the broader narrative here, and that’s the really important thing to remember.”
While the recently published study focuses heavily on this time period of 7-7.5 thousand years ago, Weitzel points out that around 3,000 years ago, we see a reversal of this pattern. “We suddenly start to see people leaving those high-quality locations, and we start to see almost the absence of trophy taking whatsoever.” Between 1-3,000 years ago, trophy taking becomes incredibly rare in comparison, and we can observe a shift in the region that seems to have alleviated some of the pressure on these groups as people start expanding into lower quality habitats and group violence is no longer as prominent in the material record.
Because the data in this study is being pulled and reanalyzed from previous work, no excavations are necessary to further this research. However, this team has plans to continue working with these large databases to investigate these questions further. Weitzel says, “There are a lot of great questions to be asked about the shift from foraging to farming in terms of how exactly this cooperation was maintained, because it’s tough to get a bunch of people on the same page, doing the same thing at certain times. In this time when we are seeing this shift, there is actually no clear evidence yet for a strong social hierarchy, so this is a bit more of a social heterarchy—a kid of less vertically structured and more horizontally structured system. This really interesting question can be asked about how exactly they were cooperating and overcoming these collective action problems they were faced with when trying to cooperate, and that’s something that I’m really interested in looking into in the future.”
For years after England’s defeat of the French in Egypt, ancient Egyptian artifacts streamed into England. The most famous of these, the Rosetta Stone, was unveiled in 1802; in 1808, the architect Sir John Soane famously gutted his Holborn residence, creating a top-lit, three-story void, at the bottom of which reposed an Egyptian sarcophagus, glittering with traces of its original gilt. But notevery dislocated artifact enjoyed such a celebratory reception. Smaller, less attention-grabbing items also circulated, mainly among specialists and antiquarians, providing less spectacular but arguably more meaningful opportunities for scholars to engage with the ancient past.
One of these modest artifacts was a cache of carbonized papyri scrolls discovered in the ruins of Herculaneum. Found in Naples when the city became an English protectorate, the rolls came to the attention of the Prince of Wales who, during the six years of English rule that followed, spearheaded an effort to unroll and transcribe them. He selected the Reverend John Hayter, future chaplain to George IV, to oversee the project. In 1800, Hayter claimed to have opened two hundred of the charred scrolls. Two assistants, Carlo Orazj and Giuseppe Casanova, produced apographs (scribal facsimiles) of some, if not all, of them.
When the French reconquered Naples in 1806, the court absconded to Palermo with the apographs. In August 1807, the newly appointed English plenipotentiary to the area, William Drummond, convinced the court at Palermo to hand them over.He passed them to Hayter, who managed to engrave only part of one. This disappointing performance may have reflected the encroachment of other interests, since a year later Drummond excoriated him for his involvement in a series of sexual scandals, including one involving a Neapolitan baron’s daughter. “I am sick of the stories of your battles in the brothels,” Drummond griped, not omitting to point out that even while at Naples, Hayter had opened only half as many scrolls as he had claimed. After dismissing Hayter, Drummond convinced the court to allow the apographs to be sent to England for publication under the auspices of their longtime royal champion the Prince of Wales, who transferred them to Oxford, where they remain.
Meanwhile, a set of similar scrolls had come to the attention of one Thomas Young. Young [pictured right], who eventually made a serious bid to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs, was at this time merely an up-and-coming London physician and occasionally dabbler in ancient scripts. A handful of people, including officials from the Royal Society and the British Museum, were attempting to determine the best method of unrolling the papyri, and Young was selected to assist. His medical and scientific training were particular points of favor, for he was known “to have formerly employed himself in minute anatomy” and had considerable skill in experimental physics and chemistry.
Working on the scrolls, Young experienced firsthand the physicality of an ancient object. The scrolls’ recalcitrant forms, their materiality, demanded his dexterity, honed from years of painstaking anatomical dissection and experimental work. He was no less dexterous in making sense of these ancient linguistic remains by linking their spatial dispositions to meaning. These methods carried forward into his engagement with Egyptian hieroglyphs.
To unroll the papyri, Young devised a method that drew on his anatomical expertise. Breathing humid air through a tube onto the charred scroll, Young attempted to use an “anatomical blowpipe” instead of “a dissecting knife.” The method was reminiscent of one recalled, years later, by an unnamed fellow at Cambridge who had “once found [Young] blowing smoke through long tubes, and I afterwards saw a representation of the effect in the Transactions of the Royal Society to illustrate one of his papers upon sound.” To keep unfurled leaves apart, Young proposed the use of goldbeater’s skin, the fine coating of a lamb’s intestine used to make gold leaf, following the practice of Antonio Piaggi, a monk, who was the first and most successful unrollerof papyri scrolls. When this expedient failed, Young tried “chemical agents of all kinds,” even “maceration for six months in water,” to little avail. He proposed, presciently enough, leaving to the future further work with these fragile relics.
In 1810, two classical scholars, William Drummond and Robert Walpole, published a volume, the Herculanensia, containing “archaeological and philological dissertations” on the papyri and transcriptions of “a manuscript found among the ruins of Herculaneum.” Walpole, a rector in Norfolk, had graduated Cambridge with a prize for a Greek ode; his translation of Greek comic fragments into Latin and English verse appeared in 1805.Drummond, of course, was the appalled administrator who had berated Hayter years before.
Drummond had by this time established himself as a classical scholar. In 1805, he published Academical Questions, a controversial plea for ancient philosophy as a prophylactic against dangers presented by modern thought. “Let not those, who would be steady in their opposition to all speculative reasoning, and who would still persevere in imposing new fetters on philosophy, ever tread the soil where the sages of Greece conversed with their disciples,” he opined.Translating the Herculaneum papyri, Drummond hoped to find support for his positions.
Dedicated to the Prince of Wales, the Herculanensia consisted of ten essays or “dissertations” ranging from the population and topography of Herculaneum through discussions of the Greek language, Roman painting, and materials used in writing. Some were written by Drummond, others by Walpole. The eighth, by Drummond, engaged the paleography of the scrolls. The ninth, also by Drummond, provided a discussion, transcription, and emended text of a “manuscript of Herculaneum” that, he claimed, bore the title περι των θεων (On the Gods)—and this was where he hoped to find the evidence he so badly needed.
Drummond maintained that the manuscript represented “the sentiments of an Epicurean, concerning the system of theism professed by the Stoics,” and that it had roused Cicero to write De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods). Drummond was not concerned with the transcription and emendation per se, for which he declared to have relied on the “Academicians of Portici,” a group that had been working with the papyri in Naples since the 1750s. These, he assumed, were the fragmented manuscript’s emending editors—a curious position since, having employed Hayter and his crew, he had good reason to think otherwise, for Hayter had authored both transcription and emendation. Rather, Drummond was principally interested in finding Epicurean accusations against the Stoics.
To Drummond, then, the scrolls represented an opportunity to pursue his philosophical axe-grinding. To others, the scrolls represented an opportunity to pursue the more modestwork of correction and emendation. Charles James Blomfield, a fellow of Trinity College who reviewed the Herculanensia for the Edinburgh Review, was unenthused by the papyri, observing that atleastone of the manuscripts “is in a very mutilated state; and, from the mode in which it is printed, any attempt to fill it up from conjecture is almost a hopeless task; but, in fact, it does not seem to be worth much trouble; and if all the unedited Papyri contain matter as little interesting as those already published, no good is likely to result from their being given to the world, but an accession to our stock of paleographical knowledge”—and not even that, he continued, “unless future editors will give accurate copies.” Following Drummond, Blomfield attributed the effort to correct parts that could not clearly be read to “the Academicians of Portici” whose labors were “often singularly unhappy, but sometimes successful.” Drummond had only offered “one or two conjectures” of his own, though nothing extensive; neither did he essay a translation.
As Blomfield’s review of the Herculanensia wended into print, Young was writing his own response, a substantial essay of twenty pages, for the Quarterly Review. Buoyed by his firsthand experiences with unrolling papyri scrolls, Young hailed the appearance of the Herculanensia, a “highly interesting volume,” as “a memorable event in the history of classical literature.” He commended the “profound erudition and extensive knowledge” of Drummond and Walpole, and even quoted at some length Drummond’s account of the scrolls’ history. Brief remarks, also positive, followed concerning the first four dissertations. But the fifth, by Drummond, attracted Young’s criticism. Drummond, he wrote, had been “somewhat precipitate in his conjecture respecting the sense of a passage in the Bacchae of Euripides,” which Young proceeded extensively to correct. He made other “observations” of this sort, his critique escalating until he reached the eighth dissertation, by Walpole, on paleography.
In 1807, Walpole had observed that all but one of the opened scrolls were written in Greek, in capital letters with neither spaces nor accents. Yet Walpole insisted that accents had existed as early as 248 BCE, citing for evidence the orthographic features of a Herculaneum wall inscription and passages from several authors. Young, in contrast, merely recurred to a “usual belief” that accents had been invented a half century later by Aristophanes of Byzantium.This apparently minor orthographic question was of surprisingly profound significance. Its resolution would shape any attempt to restore the text of the fragment,as specialists in paleography knew from long and hard experience.
Debates concerning Greek accents, particularly in ancient poetry, had been ongoing for at least a century and a half. In De poematum cantu et viribus rythmi (1673), the Dutch scholar Isaac Vossius had averred that accents were ignorable late inventions. A half-century later, John Foster, a master at Eton, where the use of accents in teaching Greek was a sine qua non, revived the matter. In a diatribe against Vossius, Foster claimed that orthographic elements such as accents were closely tied to pronunciation and to the anatomical organs of speech. According to Foster, Vossius had failed to consider that “as vocal sounds are formed by organs of speech which are essential and immutable parts of our nature, they must have been in all ages substantially and formally the same, tho’ variously modified in their application.” From this foundation, Foster constructed an argument “drawn from the nature of speech itself” as proof of the early existence of accents.
Young may not have read Foster—there is no evidence that he did—buthe would certainly have agreed that inscription necessarily connected to speech. As a student, Young had been interested in phonemes in relation to writing, and he had absorbed the argument, made by the eighteenth-century grammarian Gregory Sharpe, that the earliest writing to capture speech—Hebrew, Sharpe believed—necessarily omitted accents. Although Young might have agreed with Sharpe about that, he had no doubts about the appropriateness of supplying accents to capture the sonic expressiveness of discourse. He even criticized Drummond for “disfiguring” his Greek by omitting them.
Just as Young took exception to Walpole and Drummond’s representation of pronunciation, he also objected to the transcription and translation of the manuscript fragment that appeared in Herculanensia. Because Young held that inscribed meaning depended upon the spatial imprinting of sound in specific ways, it was essential to consider the physical placement of words in the Herculaneum papyri. Young faulted Drummond’s transcriptions for being insufficiently attentive to location, in particular to the blank places where words might once have been. Attending to the spatial character of the scroll, Young proposed a different restitution of the passage. This effort elevated Young’s status as a classical scholar; no longer could he be considered a dilettante. According to his first biographer, Young’s review “at once placed its author, in the estimation of the public, in the first class of the scholars of the age.”
It is not hard to understand why. The differences between the Herculanensia’s fragment and Young’s reconstruction reflect his conviction that, when attempting to determine the meaning of inscriptions of a phonographic language, one must take into account the spatial arrangement of the inscription—and his results were surprisingly accurate.
Though he had not seen Casanova’s original, Young was skeptical of Hayter’s version, which departed from Casanova’s in several respects. Although the original was entirely uppercase and lacked spaces, Hayter had rendered it in lowercase with lacunae. He appended a reconstruction of the text that filled in these empty spaces, substituting words and phrases where Casanova struggled to read the text.
Certain that the sense of the document could only be divined from a reproduction that did not introduce such elements, Young produced “a specimen of the state of the manuscript,” giving “its first page, which is the most defective, as nearly as possible in the form in which we suppose it to stand.”To restore the physical form of the fragment, Young carefully reworked the Herculanensia text, eliminating spaces and using only uppercase letters. Young’s restoration matches up well with the original apograph—which, again, he had not seen. In line 17, for example, Young eliminated spaces and moved the letters, now uppercase, to the right, precisely as in the (unseen) apograph. To six lines of the Herculanensia version, Young added a letter to make sense of a word. In one amended line (no. 26) Young omitted six letters—των ανο—from the Herculanensia’s transcription. “This line,” Young wrote, “as printed, contains twenty-five letters, and is totally unintelligible.” But, Young continued, by omitting the offending phrase, the sense “may be made to accord perfectly with the context.” Comparing his version to the apograph by Casanova, we find that he has matched the spacing of the apograph correctly.
Not content merely to regenerate the original on which the apograph was based, Young next recreated the entire passage. His notes no longer survive, but they were available to Peacock as he wrote Young’s biography. According to Peacock, Young had worked “an exquisite copy of the entire manuscript— which is now before me—with the lacunae filled up in a differently coloured ink.” This expedient had eventuated in an “intelligible text, which is good Greek,” while allowing “the reader to judge of the propriety and probability of the restorations which are proposed, not only with reference to the space which they occupy, but likewise to the words or portions of words which precede and follow them.”
Young also found grounds for changing the fragment’s title. Instead of the Herculanensia’s περι των θεων (which appeared nowhere in the transcription), Young extracted ΠΕΡΙ ΕΥΣΕΒΕΙΑΣ ΚΑΤ ΕΠΙΚΟΥΡΟΝ from the final four lines, leading him to retitle the passage as “A Treatise on Piety, according to Epicurus.” This result differed completely from Drummond’s, with devastating effects on the latter’s argument concerning Cicero. Having translated the title as “On the Gods,” Drummond was convinced that the fragment had provided Cicero with the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters of his De Natura Deorum, in which Cicero has Gaius Velleius represent Epicureans. Young demurred, and to prove the point he translated the passage of Cicero to which Drummond referred and listed the supposedly comparable lines. “The reports are not by any means so precisely similar,” he wrote, “as to induce us to suppose, that Cicero had ever undertaken the justifiable liberty of saving himself some little trouble by making use” of another author’s work. This coup de grâce was preceded by a complete translation into English of the re-created passage.
Triumphantly Young concluded: “We are very sorry to observe how lamentably the modern Academicians of Portici,” that is, Hayter, “have fallen short of their predecessors.” In response Hayter sought Drummond’s support. Young’s emendations to the apograph particularly irritated Hayter who, finding them entirely faulty, told Drummond that “the supposed facsimile of the Reviewer is not a facsimile of the original, neither in the distances, nor in the form of the characters.” Hayter may have claimed as much, but we have already seen that, “facsimile” or not, Young’s proposed revision of the transcription does fairly well match the original.
Because Young’s critique implicitly tarnished the diligence and competence of the apograph’s transcriber, Hayter devoted much of his reply to insisting that his dimensions for the lacunae were accurate. Not only had they been “taken with much care by the copyist,” but Hayter had also personally checked them against the original. He insisted that his own “conjectural letters” took account of potential sources of copying errors, and perhaps he had—though Young’s point was not that the Herculanensia’s transcription added too many letters for the extant spacing, but that it made little sense. Finally, Hayter claimed that, unlike his own reconstitution, Young’s emendations did not fit the apograph. In Young’s original “facsimile”—or a copy of it, obtained perhaps from Young himself—Hayter spied an apparent inconsistency with Young’s printed revision. In the ninth line of his reconstruction of the apograph, Young gave ΔωΡΕΑΝ, “free,” for Hayter’s lowercase δορεαν, whereas in Young’s proposed reconstitution, the word ΜωρΙαν, “folly,” appears instead. The apograph’s ninth line does seem to contain a Δ, but the letter, being broken, was hard to read. Young had substituted “folly” because the latter, which made sense in context, justified his emendation of a character that Casanova may well have mistaken. Hayter nevertheless fastened on this anomaly as evidence of Young’s incompetence.
With this foray into the words and inscriptions of antiquity, Young revived his longstanding interest in languages, their origins, and the ways in which their sounds could be visually represented; in this way, his immersion in the Herculaneum papyri prepared him for his confrontation with the scripts of ancient Egypt. His adversary, Hayter, did not benefit nearly as much. Printed privately, Hayter’s response seems to have had little effect, perhaps because he had unwisely included Drummond’s letter of rather lukewarm support with the publication. That Young’s review was published anonymously may have reduced any pressure he felt to reply, which he did not. The damage, at any rate, had been done. Four decades later, Peacock noted that “no subsequent attempt was made to re-establish the character of Mr. Hayter as a scholar, or to vindicate his conduct with respect to the abandonment of the papyri and of the copies made of them.”
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Editor’s Note: Thomas Young later went on to make important contributions to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs, particularly the Rosetta Stone, before Jean-François Champollion expanded on his work and achieved the task.
Readers who want to read more can purchase the book, The Riddle of the Rosetta, which will publish this fall (Sept. 15th, 2020). In this book, authors Jed Buchwald and Diane Josefowicz relate the story of the race between philologists Thomas Young and Francois Champollion to decipher the Rosetta Stone, including their different approaches to ancient Egyptian material culture. The book can be purchased at Princeton University Press.
Warren Aston is an independent researcher based in Brisbane, Australia. He studied archaeology at the University of Queensland, and has been involved in archaeological projects in Mexico and Oman over several decades. He can be reached at: astonwarren@hotmail.com.
Editor’s Note: The following paper, published exclusively here at Popular Archaeology, relates a detailed review of the investigation of enigmatic tumuli, or mounds, on the Isle of Pines, part of the island French territory of New Caledonia in the South Pacific. The origin and purpose of these tumuli have eluded investigators and scientists for decades, sparking various conjectural explanations for their existence. If the tumuli represent the work of humans, they would provide evidence for human occupation of the island thousands of years before the currently accepted dates for human habitation. The author suggests a new hypothesis for further study.
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RECOVERING A PRIMAL EVENT IN SOUTH PACIFIC PREHISTORY: NEW CALEDONIA’S TUMULI : TOWARD RESOLUTION
ABSTRACT
The ancient migrations settling the South Pacific remain poorly understood. This is particularly so when the New Caledonia sequence is considered and where perhaps the greatest archaeological mystery of the region awaits resolution. Scattered across the Isle of Pines more than 400 tumuli, or mounds, shelter substantial cement blocks, many with a circular shaft running through their centre. The only tumulus fully excavated also revealed a large cone-shaped iron object buried directly beneath the shaft, function unknown. Described by two archaeologists as recently as 2015 as “a kind of archaeological nightmare” 1the origin and purpose of the tumuli remains enigmatic, the mystery compounded by studies revealing dating thousands of years earlier than settlement models currently allow. The paper outlines various investigations over the last century before arguing that excavation data from two seminal studies (Chevalier 1963 and Lagarde 2017) demonstrate that non-anthropic explanations – notably the long-standing avian theory – fail to address the substantial data indicating a human presence on the island predating the Early Modern Era. A new hypothesis for the original purpose of the tumuli is presented, one based on the accumulated data.
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Keywords
Isle of Pines, Tumuli, New Caledonian pre-history, pre-Lapita culture
NOMENCLATURE
While the term “tumulus” – a mound – is accurate enough, the word can have an unfortunate association in English with burial practices. To remove the ambiguity provided by the fact that there are, of course, numerous other “mounds” of varying characteristics, both on the Isle of Pines and elsewhere, the term “tumulus” in this paper refers to what are more accurately described as a “cement-core tumulus.”
The cement interior of the tumuli is typically referred to as a “cylinder” in the various early reports. As this term conveys the implication of circularity, and these structures are actually cube-shaped, this paper will use the term “core” as more accurate terminology.
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INTRODUCTION
The Melanesian Kanak population is believed to have inhabited the islands of New Caledonia since the so-called Lapita period around 1350 BC. The first European arrivals on Kunie, the Isle of Pines, in the early nineteenth century noted the numerous tumuli, but the indigenous population ascribed no particular significance to them. This led to some early investigations and conjecture, but no sustained attention for many decades. Proper studies and initial excavations commenced only in 1959. Since then, scholarly opinion has advanced – and discarded – a range of ideas concerning the tumuli, but without a consensus to the present.
MATERIAL REMAINS – A DESCRIPTION
More than 400 large tumuli are dotted over much of the Isle of Pines with a concentration on the central so-called “Iron Plateau,” plus about 20 at particular locations in the south of the main island of New Caledonia. No systematic attempt has yet been made to locate tumuli elsewhere on the main island or, indeed, the other islands of the group. Early settlers assumed these were simply ancient burial mounds, but no graves, bones, pottery, charcoal, etc. have ever been found in them.
The locations of the tumuli generally appear to be quite random regardless of the terrain, although in a very few places a possible alignment or circle might be perceived in aerial images. More certain is the fact that most tumuli are rarely spaced less than 200 m apart, as geologist JacquesAvias noted in 1949.2 The tumuli average about 3 m in height with a circumference ranging between 15-25 m.3 While the majority of tumuli fall into this size range, a handful of ovalshaped structures have also been described; one that was examined measured 3 m high and 16 m wide.4
New investigations have revealed that as much lies beneath the tumuli as above; the mounds contain a large square or oblong core made of a high-grade concrete. The most detailed excavation to date of a tumulus was on the Isle of Pines in 1959, revealing a core almost 2.60 m tall and a substantial 1.8 m across. At several points along the height of the core it was encircled by rings of iron-oxide nodules.5 The oval-shaped tumulus noted earlier proved to have two concrete cores, each 2 m diameter, and placed 5 m apart.6While the concrete cores so far examined appear to consist of homogenous material, the upper part of one of the Paita cores that was completely demolished contained irregular pockets of soil of varying sizes.7 With regard to the soil intrusions, excavation data remain too limited to draw any conclusions.
Most intriguingly, the Isle of Pines tumulus excavated by Chevalier in 1959 revealed that buried directly below the centre of the core was a symmetrical cone or top-shaped iron object, pointing down and surrounded by 3 rings of large iron nuggets. It was over 2 meters long.8 As will later be discussed, Chevalier’s excavations of two tumuli at Paita also revealed puzzling features below the concrete core. One of the tumuli completely demolished on Paita revealed a separate “vaguely circular” slab of cement beneath it, in the middle of which was a wide (90 cm) and deep (1.8 m) trench, oriented east-west, and two holes at different depths. The other Paita tumulus did not appear to have a comparable feature beneath the core.9
Another, most significant, feature was not noted until the excavations led by Jack Golson in 1959-1960: a circular, vertical, shaft running from the top of the core at its centre down to its base; this will be discussed further.
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Figure 1: Known tumuli locations on the Isle of Pines (after D. Frimigacci, Notice explicative de la feuille Ile des Pins: Carte géologique à l’échelle, Paris: BRGM, 1986, 28).
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Figure 2A: One of hundreds of enigmatic “tumuli” on the Isle of Pines. This early photograph was published by R. H. Compton in 1917 and shows one of the rare double-cored mounds.
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Figure 2B: A 1949 aerial view of the “Iron Plateau” of the Isle of Pines with scores of tumuli visible before reforestation of the area.
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Figure 3: Today, hundreds of mounds lie in open land or in pine forests on the Isle of Pines. Photograph by the author, 2017.
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MODERNS ENCOUNTER AN ENIGMA
Some of the underlying issues for some aspects of New Caledonian and, more generally, for South Pacific pre-history remaining in somewhat of a stalemate were discussed in Roger Green & J. S. Mitchell’s 1983 paper, “New Caledonian Culture History: A Review of the Archaeological Sequence,”10 The authors provide the following reasons: firstly, over the years research has appeared in a great range of venues and is seldom integrated. Secondly, not allfindings have been published in readily available sources (and sometimes not published at all); thirdly, a perceived language barrier as the main sources are [obviously] in French and English; finally, one of the primary sources (Gifford & Shutler, 1956) has some deficiencies in its presentation of data – something Green and Mitchel discuss – and investigators since have not followed a consistent terminology or frame of reference.
A chronological examination of the main sources reveals the long-standing confusion over how to account for the tumuli within the accepted time-frame of human arrival in New Caledonia, as well as the factors outlined by Green and Mitchell just noted. To examine even a brief history of modern sciences’ attempt to understand these structures is to encounter a spectrum of human foibles, ranging from honest reporting with rational analysis to degrees of disingenuity and, above all, avoidance.
Early observers on the Isle of Pines realized that these scattered mounds represented a mystery and were quick to seek answers. As early as 1897, Frenchman Theophile-Auguste Mialaret reported “opening” a tumulus, but finding nothing of interest.11In 1917, Englishman R. H. Compton reported in The Geographical Journal the “remarkable” dome-shaped mounds of earth: “…excavation has revealed no contents of interest…various suggestions have been put forward to explain them.” In both cases their efforts were watched, as Compton noted, “without fear by the indigenous people who, while claiming that they did not make the tumuli, could give no explanation for their origin.” He concluded: “I am quite unable to offer any suggestion as to their origin myself.”12
The 1949 paper by Avias included an aerial photo (reproduced here as Figure 2B) showing “nearly two hundred” tumuli on the central “Iron Plateau.” He proposed a series of ancient arrivals in the southern Pacific, predating the Melanesians, concluding “…at least the following hypothesis can be put forward: a civilization …preceded the present Kanak civilization…this civilization had a Neolithic industry more advanced than the indigenous people.”13
That the structures contained a massive concrete core remained unsuspected and unknown until proper excavations on the Isle of Pines began in 1959. Leading the post-war vanguard of serious investigators were two archaeologists, Jack Golson and Luc Chevalier.
From 1959-1960 British-born Australian archaeologist Jack Golson led a team excavating four “tumuli” on the Isle of Pines, finding that there were at least 3 types of structures. Golson’s team went on to map more than 120 mounds and excavated three of them. They viewed the concrete cores as “anchors” and established, by probing their centers, that “many” other mounds also had a cement core. As briefly noted earlier, their excavations revealed that at least several of the cores had a vertical hole running through them, a feature they termed “postholes,” but could not determine what function the shaft might serve.
Golson published a brief report in 1961, “Report on New Zealand, Western Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Fiji” concluding: “The mystery of the tumuli is thus, despite this spate of activity, as great as ever. Who were these concrete makers of New Caledonia and what is the function of their constructions? Native tradition is silent and the archaeologist as yet ignorant.”14In 1963 he published more data from his expedition in “Rapport sur les fouilles effectuees a l’ile des Pins (Nouvelle Caledonie) de Decembre 1959 li Fevrier 1960” and with Daniel Frimigacci in 1986, “Tout Ce Que Vous Pouvez Savoir Sur Les Tumulus, Meme Si Vous Osez Le Demander,’’15providing a comprehensive summary of the topic.
Luc Chevalier, the French archaeologist, was led by unexpected circumstances in September 1959 to shed further light on the tumuli. Based in Noumea as curator of the National Museum, Chevalier traveled to the Isle of Pines to investigate a report that local workers upgrading a road had encountered a solid white “rock” at the centre of a tumulus they were demolishing for road-building material. With a half-exposed mound as a starting point, Chevalier immediately began excavating until the southern side of the tumulus core was exposed and the unexpected object beneath it revealed. Chevalier describes it as an “iron oxide rock” about 2.40 m tall – almost as tall as the core itself – and a maximum diameter of 1.10 m, resembling a symmetrical upside-down “top” or cone, pointing down. At that point, the entire structure threatened to collapse; amid several small landslides excavation was halted. In 1963, Chevalier’s final report, “Le Probleme des Tumuli en Nouvelle-Caledonie”appeared in the Bulletin de la Societe des Etudes Melanesiennes;16It deserves close reading.
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Figure 4A, 4B (2 images): The exposed 2 meter high concrete core from the tumulus excavated by Chevalier in 1959, with a close-up view of large iron nodules embedded in it. Photographs by the author, 2018.
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Figure 5: Chevalier’s 1963 excavation report (his Fig. 5) shows the interior of the mound after excavation. The rings of iron nodules and the top-shaped object buried beneath the central core are clearly shown.
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Chevalier then examined other nearby tumuli on the Iron Plateau, determining that at least many of them also contained a central core made of “white mortar” and making particular note of the oval-shaped tumulus that contained two cores. Returning to Noumea, he then investigated several tumuli in the region of Paita just north of the capital. An identical situation to what had happened on the Isle of Pines involving road workers was replicated in Paita; this time uncovering two concrete-cored tumuli about 300 m apart. It was here that several intact Placostylus snail shells found embedded in the concrete matrix of the cores and were sent, with samples of the cement, to a laboratory in Parisfor dating. His report shows images of the exposed concrete cores of 2of the Paita tumuli being demolished.
Despite anticipating further excavations that would “verify the presence and shape of this [cone-shaped] stone under the other tumuli,”17 Chevalier’s next excavations at Paita would only raise more questions. Aside from the absence of any mention of Golson’s “post holes” in the concrete cores (about which Chevalier may not have been aware) in his reports, those he examined remained completely analogous to those in the Isle of Pines tumuli although, as noted earlier, the Paita cores had differing material beneath them and the cone-shaped object was not found in these part-excavations. Nor does Chevalier mention returning to the Isle of Pines, although he expressed optimism that a complete excavation campaign there would be possible the following year, ie. 1960.18
Among other significant aspects, Chevalier noted that on both the Isle of Pines and at Paita the excavations were culturally sterile; that is, no tools, pottery, charcoal etc. could be found. The closest thing to a cultural artifact was the apparent surplus of construction materials found near the two Paita tumuli excavated, a quantity of lime mortar mixed with silica near one and a 10 m wide elevation of silica gravel near the other. Both offered clear indications of human involvement likely, as Chevalier recorded, being the places where cement was prepared before being poured into the centre of the tumulus to form the core.19
He commented, “There is no doubt that the same people who made the tumuli on the Isle of Pines also made those in the region of Païta. The only difference between them is that the tumuli of Païta are made of a supply of silica present everywhere, while those on the Island of Pines used the “iron shot” which is found in abundance on the plateau….It is also necessary to determine the origin of most of the mortar: or is this the result of the calcination of coral?… it is curious to find no fragments of charcoal in the mortar. [It indicates] a space between the time of the construction of the tumuli and the pre-European Melanesian era.” The conclusion of his report, “Many Questions Without Answers,” summed up the facts:“The tumuli of New Caledonia are undoubtedly the result of an ancient human activity of which there is no trace in the local tradition.” Remember that the manufacture and use of lime was not known to the natives before the arrival of the missionaries in 1843. One is perplexed by the importance of the work done to erect these monuments. When one thinks that a tumulus represents on average, a volume of 200 m3and that on the Isle of Pines alone there are more than 300 tumuli, requiring a very large workforce. However, this workforce during its work, had to leave some traces of its passage, its life, its activities …to date, no trace, no evidence, no vestige, either inside or outside the tumulus has been found.”
Chevalier closed with the following, very perceptive, observation:
“…a final question arises in our mind: the builders of these tumuli knew perfectly the principle of manufacturing and using the mortar for the erection of the cylinder. Why did they not use this knowledge for other works, other realizations, their dwellings, for example…? Would they have reserved this knowledge only for the tumuli, conferring to these monuments a particular character, even a sacred one?”
Had more attention been given to these questions by those who came after Luc Chevalier, our understanding of these structures would have advanced more rapidly than it has and without the avoidance of facts and obfuscation in so much of the commentary since then.
DATING
The results of two chemical analyses of the components of the concrete (one from the Isle of Pines, one from a Paita tumulus) appeared in Chevalier’s 1963 report and are quite comparable; the primary disparity evident in the Fe and Si amounts reflecting the two very different environments of origin. The dating of the mortar and snail shells from a core excavated on Paita by Chevalier was published in a 1966 paper in Radiocarbon. This gave radiocarbon dates for surface and interior mortar (7070 ± 350 and 9600 ± 400 BP respectively), plus a date for Placostylus snail shells on the surface of a cylinder (12,900 ± 450 BP). Echoing Chevalier’s belief that the tumuli “testify to an important human activity completely extinct today…” the report’s authors noted that if the cores were really man-made “…they are by far the most ancient mortars known.”20 Radiocarbon dating by others since have served to confirm Chevalier’s very early dates. For example, a 1972 dating of tumulus cement yielded ages ranging from 4120 ± 90 to 7710 ± 70 BP.21
Space constraints prevent a full review here of those who have accepted this dating, but they include scholars such as Brookfield & Hart in 1971,22 Fr. Marie-Joseph Dubois (1976),23 Richard Shutler Jr. (1978),24 Peter Bellwood (1978),25 Roger Green & J. S. Mitchell (1983),26 Kerry Ross Howe (1984),27 John R. H. Gibbons & Fergus G. A. U. Clunie (1986),28 Christophe Sand (1999)29 and Patrick V. Kirch (2000 and 2017).30
It is an understatement to say that the disconnect between the Placostylus and mortar datingand the conventional understanding of human settlement in the Pacific is unbridgeable. To contemplate people arriving in New Caledonia as early as 12,000 years ago simply cannot be massaged into the accepted scenario. Consequently, many – perhaps most – of these researchers believed that the extraordinarily early snail shell dating had probably been of much earlier material, thus allowing for the actual tumulus construction to have taken place perhaps in the Lapita period, roughly 1500 to 500 BC. Other commentators simply ignored these data. No-one seems to have asked how multiple fragile snail shells survived intact for many thousands of years before finding their way onto the outside of a block of drying cement, for the shells were found on the surface of the cement, not in its interior. One shell can be clearly seen in Fig. 14 of Chevalier’s report.
EXOTIC EXPLANATIONS 1949>
Unsurprisingly, the inability of archaeology over many years to provide resolution as to the origins of the tumuli led to several proposals far from main-stream thinking. This began as early as 1949 with the “working hypothesis” of Jacques Avias already noted. After attempting in vain to locate patterns in the placement of the tumuli and any correspondences to the southern constellations Avias broadened his studies to all other traces from the past, such as petroglyphs and pottery styles across New Caledonia. His paper offered suggestions that a Neolithic culture predating the present Kanak civilization may have been influenced by, or even originated in, certain Eastern cultures, specifically the Chinese and Japanese. He developed an earlier thought expressed by P. Rivet in 1931 that from Japan the Ainu may have explored the Pacific islands.31While not subscribing to such views themselves, Daniel Frimigaccci and Jack Golson also mentioned that the “most extreme hypotheses were advanced to explain their presence [the tumuli],” noting in particular “extraterrestrials or mysterious populations now extinct practicing stellar-solar rites.”32
One of the great ironies is that attempts to explain the tumuli by invoking incursions by distant explorers, inhabitants of the legendary continents of Mu, Atlantis or the Aroi Sun Kingdom,33 or extraterrestrials,34 now appear somewhat less fanciful than they once seemed, especially when more prosaic explanations are compared. This is no more so than the avian theory to be discussed next.
THE “AVIAN” THEORY 1985>
In late 1985, after bones of an extinct Megapode bird species were found in New Caledonia, Cecile Mourer-Chauvire & Francois Poplin published“Le Mystere de Tumulus de Nouvelle-Caledonie,”35 proposing that these birds may have formed each tumulus by scraping the ferritic soil into a giant mound in which the eggs could be deposited and incubated until hatched. Left unexplained was how this process somehow produced a massive, linear, block of cement in the interior, with a hole running through it and, in at least one case, a large cone-shaped iron structure buried directly below that. They concluded that “the giant bird hypothesis is just as reasonable as the theory that these mounds were built by ancient humans who knew how to make cement.”
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Figure 6: The conjectured formation of the tumuli by the large extinct bird Sylviornis neocaledoniae, seen here scraping soil into a mound for nesting.
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From this quite cautious proposal, the idea caught hold. Notably, since his 1983 co-authored paper listed earlier, archaeologist Roger Green came to accept this naturalistic explanation for the mounds as outlined in his influential 1988 article, “Those mysterious mounds are for the birds.”36 Green’s article gives good background of how the Megapode theory was first pressed into service to explain the mounds. That redeeming feature aside, the reader needs to take some giant leaps of faith: the concrete cores are explained away as the wholly natural action of microorganisms, tiny globules of calcite in the soil somehow binding rocks and debris together. Later on, it was proposed that the nesting birds also introduced vegetation into the mounds which decayed, providing heat for the eggs. Subsequently, a refinement of the theory proposed that the Megapode tidily excreted into the hole in the top of the mound, the faeces becoming the heating agent for the eggs. Over time, the droppings are presumed to have fossilized and become the “cement” found today.
The Megapode theory failed to account for what qualified archaeologists actually foundin the tumuli: the components of the concrete and the iron artifacts around and beneath the core. It typically did not concern its proponents that no trace of bird shell or other material that would normally indicate an avian presence had been found.
Of course, not all scholars accepted the avian theory. Some indicated their tacit acceptance of an anthropic origin for the tumuli, sometimes in regard to the political implications any notion of pre-Melanesian settlement presents. See, for example, John Connell, “New Caledonia or Kanaky? The political history of a French colony.37 Others remained open to a human origin for the tumuli without taking a firm position pro et con. A 1995 paper by Janelle Stevenson & John R. Dodson was open to earlier arrivals, noting the evidence for human occupation 28,000 years ago on Buka Island in the nearby Solomons. They noted the divided opinions on the mounds, stating that “no cultural material or bird remains” had been found, but avoided any direct mention of the cores.38 In 1999, Stevenson noted that human arrivals earlier than the Lapita culture (ca. 3200 years ago), would remain speculative “…as long as a human origin for the so-called tumuli of New Caledonia is entertained…” referencing a paper by Christophe Sand.39
A 1997 review by Patrick V. Kirch of three 1995 publications by Christophe Sand (until 2019 Director of the Institute of Archaeology of New Caledonia and the Pacific in Noumea), critiqued the multiple earlier scholars whose analysis of data suggested the “specter” of an aceramic, cultural, origin. Sand’s publications were also criticized for not adequately discussing the Megapode theory.40Kirch essentially maintained his pro-avian position throughout his 2000 book On the Road of the Winds – An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands Before European Contact. It was republished in revised form in 2017, but while he accepted tumuli dating as early as “10,950 BC” it continued the inaccurate (and unreferenced) assertion that “egg shell” had been found in “the mounds.”41
The avian theory continued to be uncritically accepted when it reinforced more general positions. A representative statement from anthropologist Susan O’Connor argued in 2010 against the 1986 Gibbons & Clunie proposal for Pleistocene voyaging between the eastern edge of the Australian continent and New Caledonia. Their two primary arguments for the voyaging rested on the reduced distances needed for ocean crossings when sea levels were lower and the reported human derivation of a series of ‘tumuli’ or artificial mounds on the interior plateau of the Isle of Pines. O’Connor’s comment regarding the tumuli was that they datedto c. 12,000 BP, [and] have been shown as built by megapodes.”42
Beginning as a well-intentioned attempt at explanation, for many the “megapode” theory became a convenience to avoid dealing with the possibility of a pre-Lapita human presence. But it was a fiction all the same. After all, the actual components of the cement cores have been known since Golson and Chevalier’s work was published and, along with other items we would expect if birds were involved, neither Phosphorous nor any fragments of egg shells have been found in the tumuli.
The avian theory was dealt its final fatal blow on 30 March 2016 with publication of a paper by Trevor H. Worthy et al. titled “Osteology Supports a Stem-Galliform Affinity for the Giant Extinct Flightless Bird Sylviornis neocaledoniae (Sylviornithidae, Galloanseres),” in PLOS ONE.43Significantly, Christophe Sand was a co-author. Page 53 of the paper discusses the avian explanation for the tumuli (all emphasis added):
Sylviornis neocaledoniae has been identified as a possible maker of large mounds or tumulion La Grande Terre and Ile des Pins. However, there is no evidence of association of this species with these mounds and eggshell has not been found in them, despite the calcareous nature of at least those on Ile des Pins.
Given that our analyses show that S. neocaledoniae has no enhanced morphological adaptations for digging, such as those displayed by certain megapodes, it is most unlikely that it is responsible for these tumuli.
Instead these tumuli are likely to be formed by an interplay of vegetation and erosion as suggested for similar mounds elsewhere. Even if mounds were associated with eggshell, then the largest of all Megapodius species, the New Caledonian endemic and extinct M. molistructor Balouet and Olson, 1989 would be a more likely contender for their builder.
The paper concluded as follows (incidentally validating the comments made by Golson44 in 1963 about the extinct bird under discussion):
Our finding that it is a stem galliform (and thus not a megapode) makes it most unlikely to have been a mound-builder, as this scenario would require both mound-building and ectothermic incubation to have evolved twice. Furthermore, Sylviornis neocaledoniae shows no specific adaptation for digging to facilitate mound-building, unlike all extant megapodiids, making it even more unlikely that it exhibited ectothermic incubation.
THE “ENVIRONMENTAL” THEORY 2016>
Buried within the text reproduced above lay the author’s replacement theory to explain the tumuli:
Instead these tumuli are likely to be formed by an interplay of vegetation and erosion as suggested for similar mounds elsewhere. (emphasis added).
Thus, what could be termed the “Environmental theory” was introduced. In essence, it proposes that “calcite concretion” may have developed around the root complex of a long rotted tree, leading to “differential erosion” in the landscape. Such structures are variously known by names such as “mima-like mounds” or “heuweltjie earth mounds” and are found in various environments around the world. However, an examination of this phenomenon (including sources cited in notes 83-85) reveals stark differences between such formations and the tumuli. They are utterly unlike the tumuli under discussion in this paper. Not only do the former have smaller dimensions, but these formations lack the tumuli’s central concrete pillar, not to mention its central shaft and iron appendages. The suggestion is perhaps even less plausible than the avian theory it replaces.
THE “BURIAL” THEORY 2017>
In 2008, an important development began with publication by Frederique Valentin & Christophe Sand of a paper, “Prehistoric Burials from New Caledonia (Southern Melanesia): A Review.”45 The paper included a detailed description of the Tüü mound on the Isle of Pines excavated by Daniel Frimigacci, noting that the Tüü mound likely had original dimensions approximating the concrete-cored tumuli, but its interior was taken up with 3 levels of human burials; a base level of loose bones, with 2 higher levels each containing a full human skeleton. Dating of the bones yielded a range between 1930 and 1845 BP and appeared to be primary, original, interments. The salient points of the text follow (all emphasis added):
The study revealed two stratigraphic levels containing interments (Frimigacci, 1979, pers. comm. 2000). The lower level, above a basal level dated to 1930+/–70 BP (UW 655, calibrated A.D. 50 (80) 245), contained at least one complete adult skeleton, dated to 1440 +/– 35 BP (UW 766, calibrated A.D. 560 (635) 660). The body was on its right side, apparently in a hyperflexed position, knees against the chest (Frimigacci, 1979:22, figure 15).
The second level contained a complete skeleton of a male about 40 years old (Charpin, 1983). It was on its back in extension.
The surface level included many disarticulated and scattered human bones that Frimigacci (1979) regards as representing incomplete skeletons. A bone sample returned the early date of 1845 +/– 65 BP (UW 765, calibrated A.D. 30 (160) 370).
According to Frimigacci (1979: 21), “ce tertre funéraire est une sépulture collective, il a été édifié au fur et à mesure des inhumations” [the funeral mound is a collective grave which was built up by successive inhumations]…..The inhumations were apparently primary and definitive, displaying variations in positional modes and an expansion of the tumulus by addition of sedimentary levels.
By including this description and dating for a prehistoric burial on the Isle of Pines, the straightforward report effectively again differentiated burial mounds from the concrete-cored tumuli (which were left unmentioned throughout the paper). Surprisingly, this very description became the linchpin of another theory in 2017 when Louis Lagarde published his paper, ““Were those mysterious mounds really for the birds?”46 It is probably the most important study of the tumuli published since Chevaliers 1963 report.
Positioning itself, in part at least, as a response to Roger Green’s influential argument in support of the avian theory, the paper reviews the history of scientific enquiry into the tumuli, giving particular credit to the pioneering work of Daniel Frimigacci in mapping tumuli in the 1970’s and also exploring the coastal burial mounds such as the one at Tüü. It then maps the avian hypothesis in some detail, as well as various earlier attempts to explain the tumuli geologically. Results of the 2006-2010 survey led by Lagarde, some never previously published, then serve to demonstrate why the tumuli must have an anthropic origin.
For all this material we can be grateful, but despite it the report works up to a most unexpected detour, for notwithstanding the long-published excavation reports and the author’s own wide-ranging experiences, the report then proposes that the burial mounds are essentially the same as the tumuli, only the construction material varying according to the location. The detour is first introduced by mentioning an oral tradition claimed by a local informant mentioning that “posts were planted on the top of earth mounds and scenes of “torture.” This claim had been reported in 1986 by Frimigacci and Golson,47and while Lagarde rightly warns about placing too much weight upon it, he nevertheless uses it to introduce his primary conclusion in the paragraph that immediately follows.
In this next discussion, Evidence of funerary practices, thedating of a burial mound in Gadjito ca. 2309-2003 and 2208 BP is described as “similar” to the Tüü first century AD dating; on that basis the plateau tumuli are then declared to have the same ritual, funerary, function as the earth mound burials. This stunning claim completely ignores the various carbon-dating results and, as we shall see, the uncontested facts established in tumuli excavations. Lagarde is careful to first note a fundamental difference between the burial mounds and the tumuli (one has burials, the other does not), but then introduces the perplexing claim that the tumuli are void of any “archaeological material”:
Given this [dating] data, it seems legitimate to suggest a new interpretation as funerary structures for the earth mounds. One major difference separates the plateau structures from the coral plain ones: in the plateau tumuli, no evidence of archaeological material is to be found, whereas every open tumulus of the limestone environment (through Frimigacci’s or our more recent fieldwork) seems to contain human remains (Frimigacci 1986: 29).
More such claims follow:
…after sixty years of archaeological activity on Isle of Pines, the hypothesis of an ancient human settlement that would predate Lapita by thousands of years should be abandoned. Every dig and survey campaign has only brought back evidence of material culture in connection with already known assemblages from mainland New Caledonia and its global, well-known, diverse cultural traditions of the last three millennia.
…it has been impossible to discover any kind of artifact that would indicate a pre-Lapita culture, on Grande Terre or the Loyalty islands. The same goes for Isle of Pines, where no evidence of any culture that would pre-date Lapita has ever been found, after our four-year research campaign.
This hypothesis forces to unite both types of tumuli in the same function, despite the lack of archaeological evidence coming from the plateau ones. This is however very much in phase with the results obtained by Frimigacci. The plateau earth mounds and those of the calcareous seashore plain, are structurally and morphologically identical, their differences coming only from the environment in which they were erected.
Typologically, they are identical and linguistically, the people of Isle of Pines call both kinds purè: furthermore they stand in similar proportions in a population/space ratio, as hundreds of them are to be found in both chrome and coral environments. If one of the types was much rarer, if language could differentiate the structures, if the inner structure of the earth mounds was indeed typologically different, we would have separated the tumuli into two categories. On the contrary, we stand confident with the hypothesis of a unique anthropogenic tradition in which minor differences are to be explained by the surrounding environment.
This is not our idea, as Frimigacci was the first to point out the similarities existing between the two populations of tumuli, and to try to explain the use of the plateau ones by the contents of the seashore ones (Frimigacci 1986:32). His archaeological excavation of the human remains in the Tüu tumulus is for us the key finding of the past sixty years.
Arguing at some length that human bones can completely vanish under conditions of soil acidity and exposure to the elements via the “tiny limestone blocks” covering the tumuli, Lagarde concludes:
…we suggest the possibility that the tumuli are of anthropic origin, bear a ritual/funerary function and that at least some of them were used as funerary mounds for primary burials.
We hope to have brought forward that the tumuli of the Isle of Pines are more archaeologically complex than straightforward, natural, bird-made structures. Although being the last pieces of evidence that could have supported the theory of a extremely ancient human settlement of the New Caledonian archipelago, they actually belong to the recent three millennia of Austronesian presence. In our opinion, they illustrate, at least partly, the funerary practices of a time span of five to six centuries, between the end of the first millennium BC and the first centuries AD.
How can we reconcile the fact that the interiors of the burial mounds and the tumuli are, in truth, actually radically different? What can account for such a disconnect between the uncontested archaeological evidence and such explanations as this report offers? Are we seeing the rise of a new default position to replace the discredited avian theory? If so, then as with all the other attempts at explanation the tumuli it comes at the expense of the archaeological evidence. As at the time of writing such questions remain unresolved.48
NEW INVESTIGATIONS FROM 2017
The author’s explorations on the Isle of Pines commenced in 2017 and first undertook a detailed examination of the original tumulus excavated by Chevalier. This was to reveal that this concrete core had a circular vertical shaft throughout its length. As Chevalier’s excavation report did not mention such a significant feature this unanticipated find was initially perplexing, but it was concluded that his excavation had not cleared the entire summit of the tumulus before work was abruptly halted. Thus, the opening at the very centre of the top of the core—1 foot/30 cm in diameter—was missed by him. After Chevalier returned to the main island, local workers continued removing the mound’s iron gravel as a source of road-making material until only the concrete core remained but the shaft would have been of little interest even if noticed. In fact, as already noted, Jack Golson’s 1959-1960 survey reports had mentioned this feature in many of the tumuli he and his teamhad examined. In his notes, Golson designated the concrete cores as “anchors” and the shafts as “postholes,” but could not suggest what purpose the latter served.49
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Figure 8: Chevalier’s 1963 excavation report (see Fig. 5) redrawn with the circular shaft in the concrete core added.
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Figure 9A, 9B (2 images): Views looking down and up showing the 30 cm wide circular shaft running vertically through the middle of the concrete core of the tumulus excavated by Chevalier in 1959. Photographs by the author 2018, 2020.
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THE CEMENT ANALYSIS UPDATED
From abundant large excavation debris still surrounding the tumulus, the author obtained samples of the interior concrete and submitted them for elemental composition analysis in an Australian laboratory.50Following is a comparison of the results from Chevalier’s analysis of the first tumulus excavated on the Isle of Pines with the author’s 2018 analysis of the same structure, of the interior mortar in both cases:
Chevalier Analysis/Author Analysis
Loss on ignition % 33.20 41.8
Fe2O3 26.57 6.6
Fe 18.60 nil recorded
Al2O3 4.00 0.4
CaO 34.25 48.2
MgO traces 0.7
SiO2 1.80 < 0.05
SO3 not recorded 0.1
MgO not recorded 0.7
K2O not recorded 0.03
Na2O not recorded < 0.05
P2O5 not recorded < 0.05
TiO2 not recorded < 0.05
Mn2O3 not recorded 0.08
SrO not recorded 0.1
Cl not recorded 0.011
A REVISED CONSTRUCTION SEQUENCE
A construction sequence can now be proposed that incorporates all the features of the tumuli now known. It is based upon Luc Chevalier’s 1963 proposal for how the cement core was built on the Isle of Pines, but substantially expands and updates it.
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Figure 10: Construction sequence of the cement core on the Isle of Pines as proposed by Chevalier, 1963 [his note 6].
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Figure 11: Author’s proposed construction sequence in cross-section, incorporating all known features.
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Stage 1
The necessary first step required excavation of a hole through the topsoil and more than 2 meters deep into the ferruginous clay layer beneath.
Stage 2
This was followed by placement in the hole of the almost 8 foot/2.4 meters long Fe cone-shaped object, its point downwards and with at least 3 rings of Fe nuggets placed around it, perhaps to stabilize it in a vertical position. Their presence, incidentally, makes it clear that the cone-shaped object is not an artifact from iron being leached from the surface and somehow precipitating into a geometrical shape below the tumulus.
Stage 3A
Vertical placement of a tubular pillar or “pylon” (a smooth tree trunk?) of unknown length centered above the cone. Current excavation data lacks the resolution to determine which of these two possibilities is correct: (A) the pylon may have been placed in direct contact with the rounded top of the cone, or:
Stage 3B
the pylon may have been separated from the top of the cone by a shallow bed of Fe nodules and soil, the scenario utilized in this model.
Stage 4
Over a bed of medium-sized Fe nodules, the first cement layer was poured into the hole, thus stabilizing the pylon in position. At ground level the base of the cement block was surrounded (delineated?) by large Fe nodules, while a circular base layer of Fe gravel was added around the cement core to the same height.
Local materials, consisting primarily of iron gravel but inevitably also some soil, were scraped up in a circular fashion around the structure, thus differentiating the scraped area from the normal surroundings, creating the “aureole” effect still visible in aerial images, as Chevalier noted. Throughout its erection, the outside surface of the cement core was reinforced with various sized Fe nodules, in contrast to the softer cement interior.
Stage 5
The second layer of cement was added, maintaining the same dimensions as the first layer. Likewise, the Fe gravel was built up around the core to the same level.
Stage 6
The third and final layer of cement was added, maintaining the same dimensions and the Fe gravel built up around the core to the same level.
Stage 7
A final, substantial, layer of Fe gravel was added to entirely cover the cement core, completing the rounded shape of the tumulus. The small size and particularly the weight of the gravel is such that it would have rapidly filled the hole in the cement core, assuring us that the pylon, or at least a “cap” of some type, was in place when the gravel covering was added to the tumulus. The simplest explanation is that the pylon remained in place throughout.
Stage 8
It is unclear whether a final, thin, layer of soil was added to cover the entire tumulus or whether the soil already mixed in with the gravel sufficed. In either event, the tumulus was now complete with only the pylon protruding from the hole in the cement block.
Stage 9
At some point the pylon was removed (or if organic, such as a tree trunk, perhaps rotted away) and the tumulus assumed its innocuous modern appearance, giving no hint of the substantial cement and iron structures within and below it.
At most tumuli in the present, the vertical hole in the cement core is covered over by the vegetation growing in the tumulus covering; for that reason, the hole was not readily visible to early investigators. Data are currently insufficient to ascertain whether the shafts became clogged with debris after removal of the pylon. While apparently intended to provide additional stability and strength, the very substantial covering of iron gravel and soil also effectively served to protect the tumuli from weathering and disguised their nature until very recent times.51
THE FUNCTION OF THE TUMULI
Of the numerous reasons for building any structure elevated above its surrounds (to provide a higher vantage point, to elevate something for increased visibility, to use gravity to move something (eg. water) downwards, to funnel something (eg. smoke) upwards and so on), only a small number are potentially applicable to the tumuli. These are as follows:
1. A burial site. As demonstrated earlier, whatever else they may be, the structures are manifestly not burial mounds. No skeletal material, or the cultural artifacts associated with burials, have yet been observed in the concrete-cored tumuli. Human burials, of course, are found in a variety of mounds or sub-surface sites that do not resemble in any way the structures under discussion here. The human burial mounds are smaller in height and extent, have no cement core at their centre and are generally found in situations and locales more commonly associated with funeral remains.
Purely as a note of interest, in 2019 the author and others examined a large concrete-cored tumulus on private land at Gadji which had been disturbed by road construction; a small number of loose human bones were located just beneath the surface (a depth of ca. 15 cm), an act of later, accretional, burial using the surface of the mound as a convenience. Here, in a classic situation of an apparent exception proving the rule, the obviously recent very shallow burial helps emphasize that these structures were not originally intended to inter human remains, a distinction readily apparent to most observers over the years.52
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Figure 12A, 12B (2 images): The relatively recent burial just below the surface of a large tumulus in Gadji. The damaged concrete core in the centre of the tumulus and the burial location on the right side are both visible in image 12A. Images by author, 2018.
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2. As an elevated vantage point or watchtower. This proposal lacks any merit as abundant opportunities for higher views are afforded by adjacent land features and trees. And, in any case, it does not explain the cement core construction and the sheer number of tumuli built.
3. As a ceremonial or ritual centre. This concept finds some support in a handful of locations where rock-lined paths and other cultural indicators have been found. Most recently, the 2006-2010 survey on the Isle of Pines identified pathways, depressions and large ferralitic boulders atop 6 tumuli. While ceramic sherds remained “extremely rare” on the Iron Plateau, indications of eaten seashells from the coast or “fossil uplifted limestone blocks from the forest” were noted at 8 tumuli.53 Investigation is still required to determine if these works are contemporaneous with the tumulus, or a later expansion by others. Logically, the likelihood that the stones date to a much later period seems to be strengthened by their rarity.
The oral tradition noted earlier that mentioned that “posts were planted on the top of earth mounds and scenes of “torture”” does not offer support for ritual use any more than it does for a funerary function; a post or tree trunk does not require a large concrete base to ensure it stands upright. If these traditions have any substance they must refer to a usage postdating the tumuli construction.
4. As an artistic expression. The most obvious objection to the structures being an art form that developed uniquely in the area, is that their most impressive features – the interior cement block surrounded by iron nodules – was completely covered over with earth and clearly not intended to be visible. Nor would a circular earthen mound require such an interior, one that remained unseen. We would expect that an object of art would be adorned with other features, either individualistic or symbols common to the community. Instead, with the exception of the few locations noted in #3, we find only conformity, an austere plainness that suggests a strictly utilitarian, functional, purpose, not an artistic one.
A NEW PROPOSAL
By showing what the tumuli are not and cannot be, the purpose of these structures can now be proposed with some certainty. From an engineering viewpoint the large cement blocks within the tumuli have the primary purpose of stabilizing a circular pillar or pylon, standing in the vertical shaft of the core but later removed or decomposed, for no trace of them now remains.Nor is there any hint of what the pillar/pylon may have supported and why itrequired such a degree of stabilization, as evidenced by the massive cement base. Determining this is now the challenge going forward. Ascertaining the function of the cone-shaped metal object beneath the shaft may offer the most promising line of future investigation.
Nothing to date suggests that the tumuli construction took place over an extended period where we would expect to see improvisations or the development of different styles. Everything suggests a one-time concentrated effort.
Only two of the Paita tumuli preserve any trace – surplus raw material – of the construction process and, just possibly, of a stage of early experimentation with local materials. If so, we can speculate that the silica-based process may have been abandoned in favor of the iron resources readily available on the Isle of Pines.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
More answers will reveal themselves when modern archaeologists engage more fully with the structures than they have heretofore. It would require little effort to completely reveal the interiors of those structures that are already partly and even fully exposed; in particular, the large cone-shaped iron structure which is the most likely feature to fully reveal the final answers to the mystery. Was this a type of anchor, such as our modern anchor spears, for the pylon or pillar sitting directly above? While this artifact has only been reported from one site, it beggars belief to think that Chevalier chanced upon the one tumulus that had a symmetrical cone-shaped metal object positioned exactly below the shaft in the central core; it must be an integral part of other tumuli. For that matter, we cannot be sure that nothing else lies beneath the cone itself – no-one has looked.
The incongruity of the scientific establishment, particularly archaeologists and historians, in having Chevalier’s excavation reports since 1963 while still proposing solutions that do not, in any way, account for what lies within these structures is staggering. The tumuli, after all, remain readily available for examination. This inaction must represent, in large part at least, the instinctive avoidance of something that challenges present paradigms about human settlement in the southern Pacific.
Surely the time is long past when data seemingly at odds with our current thinking are ignored. Perhaps in them lies a key to a broader understanding of what influences and events have shaped the Pacific’s distant past even if, as the data in his paper suggests, it requires a reconsideration of what we can possibly term the “Neolithic” explanation. It is hoped that this paper will encourage archaeologists and historians of this region to re-engage with facts and move beyond demonstrably inadequate theories in solving the puzzle these structures still represent.
In the 21st century, the enigma remains. And if Chevalier’s questions were perceptive in 1963, decades later they can be re-stated and expanded:
The identity of the tumuli builders remains, of course, the crux of the mystery, but they certainly predated the arrival of the Melanesians who became the generally regarded indigenous culture and had no ability to manufacture concrete. Who were they? Where didtheir ability to make high-quality concretecome fromat a time when this technology was unknown, certainly in the Pacific at least?
What possible motivationor purpose could cause a people to invest so much effort to erect more than 400 of these structures, each averaging a volume of 500cubic meters?54
Why did such a massive effort leave no other traces of its life and activities—no tools, bones, charcoal, pottery or other cultural artifacts, either within the tumulus or around it?
Why did they not use this ability to construct other works, their dwellings, their burials and their sacred places before, during, or after the tumuli construction?
Over time, why was the ability to manufacture such a useful material as concrete not exported to otherislands? Why was this capacity not passed down to the Melanesians who became the generally regarded indigenous culture? Indeed, why did this capacity not arise elsewhere in the region?
The prescient questions of Chevalier, pondering the mystery of a distant, unknown, people who knew how to make durable concrete on a large scale, still await resolution.
END
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Conflicts of Interest
None.
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About the Author
Warren Aston is an independent researcher based in Brisbane, Australia. He studied archaeology at the University of Queensland, and has been involved in archaeological projects in Mexico and Oman over several decades. He can be reached at: astonwarren@hotmail.com
2. Jacques Avias, “Contribution a la Prehistoire de L’Oceanie: les Tumuli des Plateaux de Fer en Nouvelle-Caledonie” in Journal de la Societe des Oceanistes (1949), 15-50 (author transl.) Emphasis added. https://www.persee.fr/doc/jso_0300-953x_1949_num_5_5_1625
3. Louis Lagarde, “Geological anomalies?” in ““Were those mysterious mounds really for the birds?” Reappraising the Isle of Pines’ puzzling tumuli (New Caledonia)” in For a history of Oceanian prehistory: historiographical approaches to French-speaking archeology in the Pacific (Noumea: Pacific CREDO publications, 2017). Emphasis added.
4. Luc Chevalier, “Le problème des tumuli en Nouvelle-Calédonie,”Bulletin périodique de la Société des Études mélanésiennes 14-17 (Noumea: Société des Études mélanésiennes, 1963), 24-42. Emphasis added. www.archeologie.nc/docus/tumulcheval.pdf.The section titled“Tumulus A Cylindre Double” reports the examination of an oval double-cored tumulus and notes two others visible in aerial images.Three related reports by Chevalier are also on file at the New Caledonia Museum in Noumea: “Observations faites sur un tumulus ouvert a LIIe des Pins” (3 pages) dated October 6, 1959; “Note sur les tumuli de Nouvelle-Caledonie” (3 pages dated October 21, 1960 regarding the mortar analysis) and a 5 page handwritten draft dated January 15, 1961 of the article that would appear in 1963.
5. Chevalier (1963), Figs. 4, 5.
6. Chevalier (1963). See Fig. 7 sketch in “Tumulus A Cylindre Double.”
7. Chevalier (1963), Fig.10.
8. Chevalier (1963), Fig. 5.
9. See Chevalier (1963) Figs.10 and 11 with notes.
10. Roger Curtis Green & J. S. Mitchell, “New Caledonian Culture History: A Review of the Archaeological Sequence” in New Zealand Journal of Archaeology vol. 5 (1983), 19-68. Emphasis added.
11. Theophile Auguste Mialaret, L’île des Pins, son passé, son présent, son avenir: colonisation & ressources agricoles (Paris, J. André, 1897). Reprinted in 2012 (Paris: Hachette Livre BNF). Emphasis added.
12. R. H. Compton, “New Caledonia and the Isle of Pines,” The Geographical Journal vol. 49, no. 2 (London: Feb. 1917), 81-103, esp. 102-103. Emphasis added. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1779337
13. Jacques Avias (1949), 15-50. Emphasis added.
14. Jack Golson, “The Tumuli of New Caledonia” in “Report on New Zealand, Western Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Fiji,” Asian Perspectives vol. 5, no. 2 (Winter, 1961), 170-172.
15. Jack Golson, “Rapport sur les fouilles effectuees a l’ile des Pins (Nouvelle Caledonie) de Decembre 1959 li Fevrier 1960,” in Bulletin périodique de la Société des Études mélanésiennes N.S. 14-17 (1963), 11-24; Daniel Frimigacci & Jack Golson, “Tout Ce Que Vous Pouvez Savoir Sur Les Tumulus, Meme Si Vous Osez Le Demander” (1986), copy in author’s possession. Emphasis added.
16. Chevalier (1963).
17. Chevalier (1963), Fig. 5 in “Fouilles Sous Le Cylindre.”
18. Chevalier (1963), see “Tumulus A Cylindre Double.”
19. Chevalier (1963), see “Elevations Secondaires” and “Fouilles Au Tumulus no 2.”
21. T. A. Rafter et al. “New Zealand radiocarbon reference standards” Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Radiocarbon Dating. Vol. 2, (1972), 625-675, as referenced in Lagarde “Were those mysterious mounds really for the birds?” (2017). The same paragraph cites Dubois (1976) for the 12,900 ybp Placostylus dating although the dating was actually from Chevalier, as reported in G. Delabrias et al. (1966) – see note 20.
22. H. C. Brookfield & Doreen Hart, Melanesia: A geographical interpretation of an island world (London: Methuen, 1971), 78 references both Chevalier and Golson’s work and summarized: “…there seem to have been earlier – perhaps much earlier – inhabitants of New Caledonia, who built tumuli of a concrete made of coral lime…” Emphasis added.
24. Richard Shutler Jr. “Radiocarbon dating and Oceanic prehistory” in Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 13, 2&3 (1978), 222 accepted that “…by 10,000 years ago, a non-Austronesian, aceramic, pre-Neolithic, tumuli-building people were in Island Melanesia, on New Caledonia and Ile de Pines…” Emphasis added.
25. Peter Bellwood’s opus Man‘s Conquest of the Pacific (Auckland: Collins, 1978), 250 concluded: “The Isle of Pines also provides one of the more unusual archaeological mysteries of the Pacific….[dating gives] a very odd range of dates between 1000 and 6000 BC. which may be of questionable value.” However he notes: “Furthermore, it is not at all certain that the mounds are man-made, but if they are, then perhaps a Lapita connection may be found, or they may even have been built by some unknown pre-Lapita inhabitants of New Caledonia.” Emphasis added.
26. Roger Green & J. S. Mitchell (1983) sensibly accept that the concrete cores are an important indicator of a “cultural” origin, dismissing attempts to label them as “natural” by highlighting Chevalier’s analysis of the concrete. They noted that some snail shells attached to the cores and in the cement matrix provided the oldest dating and believed some dating inaccuracies might exist, but, despite preferring a later dating, still accepted that the tumuli are manmade and likely ancient: “…the enigmatic tumuli, or concrete-cored mounds, provide a number of issues, the answers to which remain uncertain. However, there are several lines of evidence to suggest that these structures are man-made…at present these tumuli present a problem which only further archaeology and more data will resolve…it seems necessary to continue attributing at least some of these tumuli with their cylinders and other features to human activities, as they provide a range of evidence not easily explained by any set of natural events…It is only if some much earlier age estimates for tumuli are adopted that they might be taken to imply initial occupation by a group of non-Austronesian speakers.” All emphasis added.
27. Kerry Ross Howe in Where the Waves Fall (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984), 31states: “New Caledonia poses one of the more interesting problems in Oceanic archaeology…the conical tumuli with an inner cylinder composed of hard lime mortar. They are clearly of human making…Three radiocarbon dates put their age at about 7000, 9500, and 13,000 years…These amazing dates may simply result from the testing of material that was long dead before being used to build the tumuli. On the other hand it is possible that the dates are correct.” Emphasis added.
28. John R. H. Gibbons & Fergus G. A. U. Clunie, “Sea Level Changes and Pacific Prehistory: New Insight into Early Human Settlement of Oceania” in The Journal of Pacific History vol. 21, no. 2 (April, 1986), 58-82 accepted that at least some of the 400 tumuli were “apparently man-made.” Emphasis added.
29. Christophe Sand, “Lapita and non-Lapita ware during New Caledonia’s first millennium of Austronesian settlement” in The Pacific from 5000 to 2000 BP (Paris: Institut de recherche pour le developpement, 1999), 139-159. Sand treated the dating as established: “The discovery of large tumuli, dated between 13,000 and 4000 BP, was at the same time seen as indication of an old settlement of southern Melanesia by modern humans…,” later noting “The significance of this dating remains unclear…” Emphasis added.
30. Patrick Vinton Kirch, On the Road of the Winds – An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands Before European Contact (Berkeley: UC Press, 2000 and 2017), 135 accepted tumuli dating as early as “10,950 BC” while still maintaining support for the avian explanation. Emphasis added.
31. Avias (1949), 48.
32. Frimigacci & Golson (1986), 1.
33. For example, see Lagarde, “Isle of Pines and the tumuli research history” in “Were those mysterious mounds really for the birds?” (2017), noting particularly publications of engineer Bernard Brou, whose 1977 book, Préhistoire et société traditionnelle de la Nouvelle-Calédonie (Noumea: Publications de la Société d’Études Historiques de la Nouvelle-Calédonie) served to popularize the migration theories of Avias, although Brou himself had favoured a geological explanation.
34. In 2018, the author published a response to the 2017 release of alleged US intelligence documents that included a claim that traces remained on the Isle of Pines of an extraterrestrial visit ca. 11,500 BP. Such an explanation will seem fantastic in direct proportion to how current one’s knowledge is of astronomical advances; the author retains an open mind.
35. Francois Poplin & Cecile Mourer-Chauvire, “Le Mystere de Tumulus de Nouvelle-Caledonie,” in La Recherche 16 (Paris, September, 1985), 1094. The same authors published “Sylviornis neocaledoniae (Aves, Galliformes, Megapodiidae), oiseau Géant éteint de l’ile des Pins (Nouvelle- Calédonie),” Geobios vol. 18, no. 1 (December 1985), 73-105. https://www.sciencedirect.com/ science/article/pii/S0016699585801820 All emphasis added.
36. Roger Green, “Those mysterious mounds are for the birds,” Archaeology in New Zealand vol. 31, no. 3 (1989), 153-158. Emphasis added.
37. John Connell, New Caledonia or Kanaky? The political history of a French colony. Pacific Research Monograph 16 (Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, ANU: 1987), 1-2. Emphasis added.
38. Janelle Stevenson & John R. Dodson, “Palaeo-environmental Evidence for Human Settlement of New Caledonia” in Archaeology in Oceania vol. 30, no. 1 (1995), 36-41. Emphasis added.
39. Janelle Stevenson, “Human Impact from the Paleo-environmental Record on New Caledonia” in Jean-Christophe Galipaud & Ian Lilley, eds. Le Pacifique de 5000 h 2000 avant le present / The Pacific from 5000 to 2000 BP (Paris: Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement, 1999), 251-258. Emphasis added.
40. Patrick V. Kirch, “Resolving the Enigmas of New Caledonian and Melanesian Prehistory: A Review,” Asian Perspectives vol. 36, no. 2 (Fall 1997), 232-244].An email exchange between the author and Kirch in 2017 served to emphasize his support for the avian hypothesis. Emphasis added.
41. Patrick Vinton Kirch (2000 and 2017). The egg shell claim appears on p.135 in the 2007 edition.
42.Sue O’Connor, “Pleistocene Migration and Colonization in the Indo-Pacific Region” in Anderson et al. eds. The Global Origins and Development of Seafaring (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2010), 46.
43. Trevor H. Worthy et al. “Osteology Supports a Stem-Galliform Affinity for the Giant Extinct Flightless Bird Sylviornis neocaledoniae (Sylviornithidae, Galloanseres),” PLOS ONE 11(3): e0150871 (2016). All emphasis added. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0150871
44. Golson (1963).
45. Frederique Valentin & Christophe Sand, “THE TÜÜ BURIAL MOUND, ISLE OF PINES” in “Prehistoric Burials from New Caledonia (Southern Melanesia): A Review,” Journal of Austronesian Studies 2 (1) (Taiwan: National Museum of Prehistory, June 2008), 5. All emphasis added. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260707175_Prehistoric_burials_from_New_Caledonia
46. Louis Lagarde, ““Were those mysterious mounds really for the birds?” (2017). All emphasisadded.
47. Frimigacci & Golson (1986), 31.
48. Louis Lagarde did not respond to multiple queries in early 2020 seeking clarification of his claim that the plateau tumuli contain “no evidence of archaeological material.”
49. Discussed in Golson (1961), 171. Additional instances where these features were found appear in unpublished excavation notes of Jack Golson in possession of the author.
50. Cement Australia, Darra Laboratory, Queensland, NATA No. 188, dated July 19, 2018.
51. A basic comparison of equal quantities by the author yielded these results: 125 g of iron gravel was heavier than dry soil at 91 g, and even soil fully saturated with water at 113 g.
52. A review of earlier literature discussing the tumuli will reveal how often the clear distinction between burial mounds and the tumuli was apparent to skilled observers. One of the earliest such accounts, for example, is Alphonse Riesenfeld’s wide-ranging Megalithic Culture of Melanesia (Leiden: Brill, 1950), 539 – 572, an interesting commentary on the times and while dated, still of value.
53. See Lagarde (2017) “Anthropic aspects of the plateau tumuli” in “Were those mysterious mounds really for the birds?”in Lagarde (Doctoral Thesis, 2012), Peuplement, dynamiques internes et relations externes dans un ensemble géographique cohérent de Mélanésie insulaire: L’exemple de l’Ile des Pins en Nouvelle-Calédonie (Paris: Université Paris I – Panthéon-Sorbonne), Tome 1, espec. 244-245). Emphasis added.
54. Lagarde provides an estimate of tumuli volumes as averaging about 500 cubic meters; see Lagarde, “Geological anomalies?” in “Were those mysterious mounds really for the birds?” (2017).
Freelance writer, researcher and photographer, Georges Fery (georgefery.com) addresses topics from history, culture, and beliefs to daily living of ancient and today’s indigenous societies of Mesoamerica and South America. His articles are published online at travelthruhistory.com, ancient-origins.net and popular-archaeology.com, and in the quarterly magazine Ancient American (ancientamerican.com). In the U.K. his articles are found in mexicolore.co.uk.
The author is a fellow of the Institute of Maya Studies instituteofmayastudies.org, Miami, FL and The Royal Geographical Society, London, U.K. (rgs.org). He is a member in good standing with the Maya Exploration Center, Austin, TX (mayaexploration.org) the Archaeological Institute of America, Boston, MA (archaeological.org),NFAA-Non Fiction Authors Association (nonfictionauthrosassociation.com) and the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC. (americanindian.si.edu).
The roots of shamanism reach back into the fog of time, to the very beginning of humanity. Through time and cultures, it is recorded as a coherent system of esoteric beliefs and practices that attempts to organize and explain the interrelationship between the cosmos, nature, and man (Eliade, 1964), and spans untold generations from the first ‘ring of fire’ to our present day. Shamanism is characterized by a subject-object dualism that dissociates, yet, paradoxically, at the same time associates the subjective from the objective, and culture with nature. Shamanism is linguistically and locally specific, with rituals grounded on reliance in communities’ environment for subsistence and survival. Today the shaman’s functions are as critical to the lives of traditional indigenous peoples as they were to their forefathers.
The fundamentals of shamanism rest on the bedrock of the nature-culture dichotomy or human-nature duality. Early in their long march from the depths of time, humans had to compete for survival with the claws, fangs, speed, and power of the rest of the animal world. Their only defense was an unusually powerful brain. This helped them withstand the onslaught of nature. Cooperation was essential for the sake of survival of the group. This was especially true for the protection of mothers and infants, since during the last months of pregnancy and after delivery, females could not easily fend for themselves. Hundreds of thousands of generations ago, the ‘ring of fire’ was the first awakening of hunter-gatherers to a world beyond their awareness. In the dark of night, the fire lit a circle beyond which everything was threatening. This fear of a different world beyond that of the group, paid for dearly through trial and error, lies at the heart of the nature-culture duality, a key aspect of shamanism, and it was fundamental to the organization of early human societies.
Mythological perception in ancient cultures was grounded in their perception of the natural world, as their remains from the Lower Paleolithic period seem to testify, as well as long before. Back then, the nature-culture dichotomy was already deeply ingrained in organized groups as key to their survival. This ancient dual perception of the world by most indigenous people is grounded in animism, a common denominator that describes most foundational aspects of ancient cultures and their beliefs. This denominator was inherited by modern humans, who co-habited within the territorial range of Neanderthals during the Late Pleistocene. Of note is the hypothesis that Denisovans and Neanderthals may have already been aware of an “other world” beyond life. Remains in their graves appear to bear witness to rituals of individuals buried with personal items, such as carved animal bone implements and medicinal flowers (Solecki, 1971)
Ancient societies named themselves according to their living and feeding area. Location drove their own binary interpretation of the nature-culture duality. In the rain forest of Panama, for example, the generic name for the Guaymí, an indigenous tribe, comes from the “muoi” dialect and means “man.” The name does not refer to gender but stresses the exclusive prominence of the group to the exclusion of others. These “others” are not considered “man,” owing to their differences in the group’s perception of the cosmos and nature, as expressed through their customs and rites. The “others” also had their own perception of duality and identity, as had other tribes. Furthermore, the gateway to beliefs and initiation is first and foremost language. The reason rests on the conviction, found in most ancient cultures, that malevolent forces can take the shape of a member of the tribe, but cannot speak the language, quintessential to the group’s identity.
The Shaman and the Tree of Life
In traditional communities today, as in most cultures in the prehistoric and historic past, individuals are selected to communicate at the esoteric plane of their mythological universe; these individuals are referred to as shamans. The name, of Siberian origin, came to the Americas with the first wave of migrants from the Eurasian landmass during the Last Glacial Maximum (33000-16500BP). The fundamentals of archaic mythologies with spatial multi-layered organizations probably came into the New World at that time; an observation that underscores the fact that mythologies are pure products of the human imagination. In most cultures, the upper and under worlds are perceived to be made of a number of layers that vary from culture to culture, and are the reflection of a primeval mythology. What is “known” or learned therefore, is more important than what is “seen” or perceived,since only a member of the group who fully shares a mental and emotional make up can understand the significance of the symbols attached to that community’s mythic world. In most traditional cultures past and present, the upper world is regarded as the home of ancestors, light and life, while the underworld is identified with malevolent spirits, darkness, danger, and death.
The link between these worlds is the middle world, or field of ordinary perception; the place where the observer, the community or clan lives, and the center through which the tree of life, or “axis mundi,” passes to connect the three worlds. The “tree of life” is believed to have its branches and leaves reach into the upper world while its roots are sunk deep into the underworld. For each human group, there is only one “tree of life” in the world — theirs! It can be an actual tree or a natural feature in their landscape, such as a mountain or a cave, mythologically identified by and for that group alone. In all world cultures, the “tree of life” is the obvious manifestation of immortality as “life that never dies.” The reason for this perception, at the root of animism, lies in the fact that without exception, the natural world for all cultures is the undeniable proof of the permanence of life through its unrelenting cycles of birth and re-birth. The tree of life for Maya communities’ past and present, for example, is the ceiba tree, or “yaaché” (ceiba pentendra).
The Universe
In most world cultures, their worldview was based on a seven-point observation of the spatial universe and their endless repetition. Those are: the four cardinal points, the zenith (benevolent forces), the nadir (malevolent forces) and the center (middle/living world), which is at the intersection of the first six points, where the observer stood. Of note is the fact that the nadir was believed to be an actual place, or adobe of malevolent deities below the flat world of humankind. This ancient universal world view was based on the observable continuum of the sun, moon and planets, traveling through both the upper and under worlds. The celestial bodies were seen crossing the visible world during the day on an east-to-west path, then believed to continue their course from west-to-east in the underworld at night, to start again a new cycle the following dawn since, how else could they show up again opposite their place of disappearance? After all, sensory perception could not be denied, since the sun indeed disappeared to reappear again day after day.
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The Eternal Return. The totem pole at sunrise, Monument Valley, AZ. Credit: Floydian
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The repetitive seasonal course of the celestial bodies was observed through manmade or landscape features to ascertain their regularity. Priest-shamans needed to justify, through time, that the sun would never fail to reappear at precisely the exact same place, day after day, solstice after solstice. Hence the need to associate heavenly bodies with the gods and deities of their pantheon as reliable mediators with nature. Once more, the nature-culture dichotomy with gods (culture), assigned mediators to nature (sun, moon), is at the core of age-old beliefs, religions and shamanic rituals.
The nature-culture duality is at the root of an unshakable conviction that a human group spatial location is what stands it apart from others. Furthermore, it affirms the uniqueness of the group’s faith to the exclusion of others. Their multi-layered spiritual world is essential to their understanding that every life-form within the field of ordinary perception has its counterpart in the “other” world. The gateway between the middle world and the two others is the human mind. Through learning, rituals and esoteric exercises, the shaman is believed to master this field of opposites, as he roams through these upper and under worlds.
The Shaman as Mediator
But, who is a shaman, and how do shamans communicate and enter into the various strata of their worlds? According to the shamanic beliefs of indigenous tribes and traditional communities, the echeloned worlds lying beyond the field of ordinary perception correspond to a microcosm (or “micro-worldview”) consisting of a sequence of dimensions of the individual’s own interior world, or inner scale of human consciousness. The shamans claim that their hallucinations, induced by psychotropic drugs, allow them to penetrate into the different stratas of that “other world” as though through narrow openings.
The name shaman comes from the word “sàman” of Manchu-Tungus and Sim-Evenki languages of southwestern Siberia. It is gender neutral and apply to both men and women alike. The initiation rituals, however, are gender specific by reason of the candidates’ physical and emotional particulars. Shamans of both sexes may, however, act in concert for specific situations where they are called to ward off malevolent male and/or female deities and during ceremonies when under stress by multiple hostile forces. In the Americas, it is relatively common for both husband and wife in a couple to be shamans. The role of shaman is performed by intelligent individuals who fulfill a number of important functions in their communities.
They are healers, say prayers, direct puberty rituals and major ceremonies such as at the time of crop planting and harvesting, among others, and for individuals’ life cycles. They are keepers of the genealogies of the tribe, recite myths, do ritual dances and chants during traditional events. They are also very knowledgeable about nature and influence decisions for hunting and conservation of resources. Their functions as mediators in situations of social conflict within the community, or with another group, is very important. However, shamans are first and foremost mediators between this world and the supernatural world (Eliade, 1964).
Contacts between genders within a group are governed by ancestral family and community-tested rules that aim to keep antagonism and latent violence at bay. For example, the nature-culture dichotomy is underscored at the time of menstruation, and perceived in most traditional cultures as a dreaded return to nature. As such, it is perceived as a recurring antagonism to culture, given the uncontrollable periodic nature of the event. At that time, in traditional communities, a woman is confined to a separate hut, that is, she is temporarily excluded from culture. In the case of young males, initiation to adulthood aims at bridging the nature-culture duality to incorporate the individual into the cultural group by forcefully bending nature over to culture. The rituals test the young man through lengthy isolation beyond family and community, and with often painful rituals. In past non-literate societies, pain was inflicted to young individuals as a “marker of time”. In most ancient cultures, initiation for both genders took place at puberty.
The position of shaman may be inherited or revealed in a vision or a dream. Someone may also become a shaman simply by following the vocation, but in this case the shaman is considered less powerful (Eliade, 1954). Apprenticeship, under the guidance of a practicing elder, takes years and extreme hardships that will end with initiation (in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, in Colombia, the Kogis, descendants of the Tairona, require a double cycle of nine years each before initiation). It is practically a universal rule that the neophyte must die symbolically, to be later reborn endowed with certain supernatural powers (Reichell-Dolmatoff, 1991). As a general rule through most cultures, a shaman is not acknowledged unless he has received two essential kinds of teachings: mastering ecstasy (dreams, trances, etc.), and traditional shamanic techniques (that will include learning the names and functions of spirits, the mythology and genealogy of the tribe or community, a secret language, etc, (Eliade,1951).
In past and present traditional societies, ancestor worship is a key constituent in people’s spiritual lives. The shaman, upon request, may assist in communing with ancestors, but the descendants alone shall address their forefathers to intercede in the resolution of family or individual conflict. Ancestors are believed to influence the lives of individuals of the same patrilineage. They are also believed to help settle disputes with ancestors of other patrilineages for grievances that may have taken place a few generations before, unsettled at the time of the demise of the interested parties, the antagonism still lingering beyond the grave (Eliade, 1964). Descendants are keenly aware that they are merely a link in the precious chain of life, from grandparents to grandchildren. Above all, ancestor worship is grounded in an age-old stern but inescapable logic: No ancestor-No descendant-No Life!
In former times, the burial of an ancestor below the floor of the house or in proximity to it, meant that the ancestor was still “socially alive” in the community, thus validating claims of the family connection with that group, while upholding family rights to resources left by departed parents. The building of temple-pyramids and other major structures in ancient cultures of the Americas, for example, were representative of the high status of persons of the realm. They were an acknowledgement of the individual’s lineage and that of a powerful and often deified ancestor, protector of the community and his descendant’s rights to titles and properties. Myths and rituals are integral to the construct of the social order. In the final analysis, the essential function of beliefs and rituals is to forcefully express, and thereby secure, the social stability of the group.
The shaman’s main communal function requires his/her association with the supernatural world through an altered state of consciousness. Altered states vary among cultures and are achieved through deep meditation, sensory deprivation, or sudden visions of supernatural beings or situations. In most parts of the Americas, however, ecstasy is more frequently attained by means of psychotropic plants, since nature is regarded as a gift from the gods, providers of food and medicinal plants on which human survival depends.
The use of hallucinogenic drugs is an ancient, worldwide cultural phenomenon. In most traditional cultures, it is closely related to the so called shamanic flight, the feeling of disassociation during which “ch’ulel” as the Maya-K’iché refer to it, is believed to separate from the body and penetrate other dimensions of the cosmos. At that time, shamans acquire their familiar totems, the spirit of animals that will become their auxiliaries. Chief among them in the Americas are the jaguar, the serpent and the eagle, representatives of the three levels of life: the underworld, the middle world of perpetual life, and the world above.
During these “flights,” shamans call on supernatural and ancestral beings about present and future events, learn new spells, chants and dances, or search for cures to ward off diseases. They will also roam the underworld for remedies to cure the souls of sick people and help those dying through the difficult the paths on their way to their last resting place. The idea of other dimensions as dwelling places of the spirits of the dead and fantastic beings is based on the experience of the ecstatic journey of the shaman. Therefore, the image that shamans form of these dimensions and the description they give of them depends on the projective process of their psychological personality and experience as practitioners, as well as on the cultural and religious tradition of the community and its environment.
Among traditional cultures, individuals are endowed at birth with the spirit of an animal companion, called “nawal” in Maya-Yucatec and “tz’iip” in K’ichè communities. It is a co-essence from the animal world. With the assistance of the shaman, a “spirit companion” is ceremonially selected at each major step of an individuals’ life, from birth to death. In other words, the “nawal” is understood to be an essential life force, an “alter ego” that must not to be confused with chu’lel or soul, in K’ichè (Uk Ux ‘Be, 2008). The “nawal” selected by a shaman is believed to follow the person’s soul to his or her death. Of note is the fact that one of the important tasks of the shaman is to search the underworld for the loss of a person’s “nawal” or for his/her soul (chu’lel), led astray by malevolent forces. The “nawal” is the intimate link between nature (animals), and culture (humans), and underlines again the fact that human attempts to distance themselves from nature through culture is a link that is never entirely abandoned.
The animal spirit companion’s abilities selected by the shaman may be speed, vision, agility, stealth, intelligence, power, grace, fierceness, or other attributes, and in the Americas they span across species from birds or butterflies to jaguars. The significance of the “nawal” is specific to a language or dialect and may have different attributes in other ethnic groups. The overriding function of thespirit-companion, however, remains the same. It is the “alter ego” of a person and, as such, must be cared for during an individual’s lifetime with prayers and ceremonies at dedicated life events, since the life of the “nawal” is believed to coexist intimately with that of the person. The Yucatec Maya of Quintana Roo called the “nawal” the supernatural guardian or protector that shares ch’ulel, the “soul stuff of the living universe”, with a person (Freidel-Schele-Parker, 1993).
The Maya-K’iché, as well as other indigenous groups in Guatemala and traditional communities of Mesoamerica, celebrate the completion of their sacred calendar. The K’iché call it Ch’olq’iij or “ordering of days”; it is called Tzol’kin or “count of days” by the Maya-Yucatec, (Tzol’kin is used here). It is understood to be a ritual or lunar calendar, while the K’iché specifically refer to it as a “Sacred Divinatory Calendar,” that orders both the lives of human beings and that of the maize plants. Maize is not only central to the Maya’s sustenance, but foremost, it is the substance with which gods created the Mayas at the beginning of time (Popol Vuh, 1701/1776). The sacred calendar is made of a succession of day/glyph-signs placed at each right angle of the Maya cross’ arms. It is a combination of numbers from 1 to 13 with one of a possible 20 “nawals” glyphs named months of 13 days.
The Mayas, unlike Europeans, were interested not only in the quantities of life in a span of time, but also in its qualities, especially its meaning in human affairs whose foundations lay in its unified view of the world as animate, with no distinction between what we call the natural and the supernatural realms. As Barbara Tedlock underlines, we have been efficient in learning and understanding their astronomy, but our efforts to penetrate their symbolic world have proved much more difficult and demanding (Tedlock, 1982). The Maya 260-day sacred calendar of 13-days x 20-months is an essential divinatory instrument used by day-keepers or diviners, overseers of the “Sacred Divinatory Calendar” and the “order of days.”
Together with their priest-shaman mentors, day-keepers complete their divinatory initiation and close their nine months training at the end of the 260-day Tzol’kin cycle. They are then “reborn” as initiates and receive “a kind of extra body soul called lightning or “coyopa”. A day-keeper with the “coyopa” born under the Ak’abal’ glyph-sign, or “nawal” of dawn, is believed to be able to communicate directly with both the natural and supernatural worlds (Tedlock, 1982). Priest-shamans are known as a “chuchk’ajaw” in K’iché, that translates as “mother-father”, gender undifferentiated, and are highly respected elders from patrilineages. They are lifetime shamans, and are called “tat” or “father” in the community.
The 20-month ceremonies that close each sacred year, are called “Waqxaqib’ B’atz” or Eight-B’atz for short. The name of the ceremonies’ first day falls on the B’atz day sign of the Tzol’kin 20-month calendar. It is used in conjunction with the number of a given day to foretell events of the past and future of a person or circumstance. The 260 days refer, among other aspects, to nine lunations, each consisting of slightly less than 29 days, or the same number of months of a human pregnancy. The oldest records of a calendar day sign with a numerical coefficient, is probably part of a 260-day cycle, and comes from Monte Albán, Period.I, dated about 600BC. (A comprehensive description of the calendar and related ceremonies is beyond the scope of this discussion).
In Momostenango, Totonicapán province, Guatemala, at the completion of each 20-months Tzol’kin cycle, Eight-B’atz ceremonies take place in town and on dedicated hills in the vicinity. The rituals imperative observance is repeated in traditional Maya towns of Guatemala, and other parts of Mesoamerica, albeit with local variations. The ceremonies are headed by newly initiated day-keepers, supervised by “H-men”, Yucatec for priest-shaman mentors. At the close of the ceremonies, a new 260-day cycle will begin anew. Meanwhile, the secular 365-day solar year, the Ha’ab, rules the daily chores of communities and work in the fields.
There can be no ceremonies without fire and no fire without a “hearth of stone.” It is the seat on which ceremonial fires are built, according to specific rituals. Various products and materials may be used in the fire by individuals to support the prayers and supplications to their own ancestors and deities. Calls to ancestors are forceful and repeated over long periods of time, to call attention to personal or family plight. The petitioners are aware that ancestors must also impel deities to intercede in patrilineage conflicts that may have arisen several generations before. Thanksgiving prayers also take place around the “hearth of stone” for joyful family events, such as the introduction of a newborn to the ancestors.
During the Tzol’kin celebrations, eight “hearth of stone” are set in small stone enclosures positioned in designated places in town, in addition to the predominant Pa’klom, the focal point of the Eight-B’atz ceremonies, with multiple family fires located on a hill in the center of Momostenango. People gather around their own fires to plead with their “nan’tats” or ancestors, for help in their daily life concern or dread. Dedicated colored candles and flowers are thrown into the fires by petitioners, together with “pom” or fragrant copal nodules, as offerings to ancestors, and to pacify one’s own deities. In Momostenango, the eighth or last “hearth of stone,” the Ko’koch, burns in front the Catholic church. It faces the door of the church since, before the conquest, the Ko’koch was located at the point of intersection where the church’s transept is today, where venerated shamans are believed to still be buried.
Throughout history, beliefs and religions evolved and became more complex, while secular symbols and archetypes, carriers of new realities, also unfolded. It took thousands of generations, trials, errors, and blind alleys to build creeds grounded in faith, corner stones of societies, to secure an inherently unstable cohesion. Shamanism, as old as humankind, forcefully coerced by history to bend to new truths and realities, still defies the test of time.
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Mircea Eliade – Shamanism, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy – Princeton-U, 1964
Fash, Agurcia Fasquelle – Visión del Pasado Maya – Centro Editorial, 2003
Joan Halifax – Shamanic Voices – Arkana Book, New York, NY,1979
Stephen Houston – The Life Within– Leslie Fitch, 2014
Barbara Tedlock – Time and the Highland Maya – University of NM Press, 1982
R.P. Ximenez – Popol Vuh – Editorial José P. de Ibarra, Guatemala, 1701 (1973)
G. Reichel-Dolmatoff – Indians of Colombia – Editorial Villegas, Bogota, 1991 David Freidel, Linda Schele, Joy Parker – Maya Cosmos, William Morrow, 1993
FLINDERS UNIVERSITY—The known timeline of the Aboriginal occupation of South Australia’s Riverland region has been vastly extended by new research led by Flinders University in collaboration with the River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation (RMMAC).
Radiocarbon dating of shell middens – remnants of meals eaten long ago – capture a record of Aboriginal occupation that extends to around 29,000 years, confirming the location as one of the oldest sites along the 2500km river to become the oldest River Murray Indigenous site in South Australia.
In the first comprehensive survey of the region, one of the oldest Indigenous sites along Australia’s longest river system has been discovered. The results, published in Australian Archaeology, used radiocarbon dating methods to analyze river mussel shells from a midden site overlooking the Pike River floodplain downstream of Renmark.
“These results include the first pre-Last Glacial Maximum ages returned on the River Murray in South Australia and extend the known Aboriginal occupation of the Riverland by approximately 22,000 years,” says Flinders University archaeologist and PhD candidate Craig Westell.
More than 30 additional radiocarbon dates were collected in the region, spanning the period from 15,000 years ago to the recent present. Together, the results relate Aboriginal people to an ever-changing river landscape, and provide deeper insights into how they responded to these challenges.
The period represented by the radiocarbon results brackets the Last Glacial Maximum (commonly known as the last Ice Age) when climatic conditions were colder and drier and when the arid zone extended over much of the Murray-Darling Basin. The river and lake systems of the basin were under stress during this time.
In the Riverland, dunes were advancing into the Murray floodplains, river flows were unpredictable, and salt was accumulating in the valley.
The ecological impacts witnessed during one of the worst droughts on record, the so-called Millennium Drought (from late 1996 extending to mid-2010), provides an idea of the challenges Aboriginal people may have faced along the river during the Last Glacial Maximum, and other periods of climate stress, researchers conclude.
“These studies show how our ancestors have lived over many thousands of years in the Riverland region and how they managed to survive during times of hardship and plenty,” says RMMAC spokesperson Fiona Giles.
“This new research, published in Australian Archaeology, fills in a significant geographic gap in our understanding of the Aboriginal occupation chronologies for the Murray-Darling Basin,” adds co-author Associate Professor Amy Roberts.
The dating, which was undertaken at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO) and Waikato University, forms part of a much larger and ongoing research program led by Associate Professor Amy Roberts which is undertaking a broad-ranging investigation of past and contemporary Aboriginal connections to the Riverland region.
The paper, ‘Initial results and observations on a radiocarbon dating program in the Riverland region of South Australia’ (2020) by C Westell, A Roberts, M Morrison, G Jacobsen and the River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation has been published in Australian Archaeology DOI: 10.1080/03122417.2020.1787928
The Last Glacial Maximum is the most significant climatic event to face modern humans since their arrival in Australia some 40,000-50,000 years ago. Recent studies have demonstrated that the LGM in Australia was a period of significant cooling and increased aridity beginning 30 ka and peaking between 23 and 18 ka.
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Midden shell exposed on the Pike cliff line on the River Murray. Flinders University
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Location map shows the areas studied by archaeologists and the River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal community in South Australia. Flinders University
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—A 1.4-million-year-old handaxe made from hippopotamus bone expands the known technological repertoire of early human ancestors, according to a study*. During the Pleistocene, Homo species developed handaxes from stone and, occasionally, bone, a tool production style known as the Acheulean. Gen Suwa and colleagues report a rare handaxe made from bone in the Konso Formation, showing that the advanced flaking techniques used on lithic materials were also practiced on bone by early Homo species living in southern Ethiopia. The 13-cm-long bone was recovered from strata dating to 1.4 million years ago. The authors characterized the bone, noting that it retained the surface of an original hippopotamus femur on the dorsal side and exhibited extensive flake scars. Analysis of the flake scars showed that the scars are continuous and that those near the handaxe’s tip appear in an alternate pattern, suggesting deliberate shaping of the bone. The authors also analyzed wear on the handaxe, finding macroscopic rounding near the tip and on both faces, suggesting cutting and sawing activities. Microscopic analysis of the handaxe revealed areas of polish and striation patterns similar to stone tools used for butchery. Given the small number of bone tools unearthed and a dearth of knowledge about bone polish patterns, the nature of the materials on which the rare bone handaxe was used remains unclear, according to the authors.
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Both sides of the 1.4 million-year-old bone handaxe Berhane Asfaw
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The bone handaxe (micro-ct based render) shown placed in a hippopotamus femur. Gen Suwa
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—A study* uncovers multiple lines of evidence suggesting state-enforced resettlement of people along the Peruvian coast during the 15th century. The Inca in Peru are thought to have forcibly resettled masses of nonlocal people in the 15th century to support the economy and quell threats to authority, transforming the sociopolitical landscape of the Andes. However, archaeological evidence of the Inca policy of forced resettlement remains scant. Charles Stanish, Jacob Bongers, and colleagues combined multiple lines of evidence – ancient DNA, archaeological artifacts, written records, and biogeochemical sources – to construct a model of ancient human mobility that lends support to the theory of state-enforced resettlement of people along the Peruvian coast during 1400-1532 CE. Whole genome sequence analysis of the remains of six individuals found in mausoleum-like graves in two cemeteries in the middle Chincha Valley on the south Peruvian coast suggested that the individuals were of Peruvian north coast ancestry–a finding reinforced by strontium isotope analysis. Radiocarbon dating of the skeletal remains indicated an age of 1415-1805 CE, consistent with the period called the Late Horizon, when such resettlement is thought to have occurred. Additional evidence from north-coast-style ceramics and textiles as well as Colonial-era written documents describing Inca resettlement policies suggested movement of people during the Late Horizon. According to the authors, the disparate strands of evidence bolster a theory of Inca-enforced resettlement of people, who may have traveled south by foot or on oceangoing vessels from Peru’s northern coast.
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Male cranium from UC-008 Tomb 1 that was sampled for ancient DNA analysis. Colleen O’Shea
*”Integration of ancient DNA with transdisciplinary dataset finds strong support for Inca resettlement in the south Peruvian coast,” by Jacob L. Bongers et al.
Compelling stories dramatize and humanize major events and characters in the history of Ephesus, the ruins of which are a popular destination for tourists in present-day Turkey.Historium Press, 2023.Available from Amazon and other online booksellers.
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Meanwhile, a set of similar scrolls had come to the attention of one 
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Warren Aston is an independent researcher based in Brisbane, Australia. He studied archaeology at the University of Queensland, and has been involved in archaeological projects in Mexico and Oman over several decades. He can be reached at: astonwarren@hotmail.com 
