UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER—Using ‘next generation’ DNA sequencing scientists have found that the famous ‘Two Brothers’ mummies of the Manchester Museum have different fathers so are, in fact, half-brothers.
The Two Brothers are the Museum’s oldest mummies and amongst the best-known human remains in its Egyptology collection. They are the mummies of two elite men – Khnum-nakht and Nakht-ankh – dating to around 1800 BC.
However, ever since their discovery in 1907 there has been some debate amongst Egyptologists whether the two were actually related at all. So, in 2015, ‘ancient DNA’ was extracted from their teeth to solve the mystery.
But how did the mystery start? The pair’s joint burial site, later dubbed The Tomb of The Two Brothers, was discovered at Deir Rifeh, a village 250 miles south of Cairo.
They were found by Egyptian workmen directed by early 20th century Egyptologists, Flinders Petrie and Ernest Mackay. Hieroglyphic inscriptions on the coffins indicated that both men were the sons of an unnamed local governor and had mothers with the same name, Khnum-aa. It was then the men became known as the Two Brothers.
When the complete contents of the tomb were shipped to Manchester in 1908 and the mummies of both men were unwrapped by the UK’s first professional female Egyptologist, Dr Margaret Murray. Her team concluded that the skeletal morphologies were quite different, suggesting an absence of family relationship. Based on contemporary inscriptional evidence, it was proposed that one of the Brothers was adopted.
Therefore, in 2015, the DNA was extracted from the teeth and, following hybridization capture of the mitochondrial and Y chromosome fractions, sequenced by a next generation method. Analysis showed that both Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht belonged to mitochondrial haplotype M1a1, suggesting a maternal relationship. The Y chromosome sequences were less complete but showed variations between the two mummies, indicating that Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht had different fathers, and were thus very likely to have been half-brothers.
Dr Konstantina Drosou, of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Manchester who conducted the DNA sequencing, said: “It was a long and exhausting journey to the results but we are finally here. I am very grateful we were able to add a small but very important piece to the big history puzzle and I am sure the brothers would be very proud of us. These moments are what make us believe in ancient DNA. “
The study, which is being published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, is the first to successfully use the typing of both mitochondrial and Y chromosomal DNA in Egyptian mummies.
Dr Campbell Price, Curator of Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum, said: “The University of Manchester, and Manchester Museum in particular, has a long history of research on ancient Egyptian human remains. Our reconstructions will always be speculative to some extent but to be able to link these two men in this way is an exciting first.”
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The Two Brothers are the Museum’s oldest mummies and amongst the best-known human remains in its Egyptology collection. They are the mummies of two elite men—Khnum-nakht and Nakht-ankh—dating to around 1800 BC. Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester
UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH—More than half of Europe’s forests have disappeared over the past 6,000 years thanks to increasing demand for agricultural land and the use of wood as a source of fuel, new research led by the University of Plymouth suggests.
Using pollen analysis from more than 1,000 sites, scientists showed that more than two thirds of central and northern Europe would once have been covered by trees.
Today, that is down to around a third, although in more western and coastal regions, including the UK and Republic of Ireland, the decline has been far greater with forest coverage in some areas dropping below 10%.
However, those downward trends have begun to reverse, through the discovery of new types of fuel and building techniques, but also through ecological initiatives such as the ongoing National Forest project and the new Northern Forest, announced by the UK Government in January 2018.
The study is published in Nature’s Scientific Reports and lead author Neil Roberts, Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Plymouth, said: “Most countries go through a forest transition and the UK and Ireland reached their forest minimum around 200 years ago. Other countries in Europe have yet to reach that point, and some parts of Scandinavia – where there is not such a reliance on agriculture – are still predominantly forest. But generally, forest loss has been a dominant feature of Europe’s landscape ecology in the second half of the current interglacial, with consequences for carbon cycling, ecosystem functioning and biodiversity.”
The research, which also involved academics in Sweden, Germany, France, Estonia and Switzerland, sought to establish precisely how the nature of Europe’s forests has changed over the past 11,000 years.
It combined three different methods of analysing pollen data, taken from the European Pollen Database, and showed that forest coverage actually increased from around 60% 11,000 years ago up to as much as 80% 6,000 years ago.
However, the introduction of modern farming practices during the Neolithic period sparked a gradual decline which accelerated towards the end of the Bronze Age and has largely continued until the present day.
Professor Roberts said this was one of the more surprising elements of the research because while forest clearance might be assumed to be a relatively recent phenomena, 20% of Britain’s forests had actually gone by the end of the Bronze Age 3,000 years ago.
He added: “Around 8,000 years ago, a squirrel could have swung tree to tree from Lisbon to Moscow without touching the ground. Some may see that loss as a negative but some of our most valued habitats have come about through forests being opened up to create grass and heathland. Up until around 1940, a lot of traditional farming practices were also wildlife friendly and created habitats many of our most loved creatures. This data could then potentially be used to understand how future forestry initiatives might also influence habitat change.”
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Gribskov Forest in Denmark. Malene Thyssen, Wikimedia Commons
POLITECNICO DI MILANO—In early November 2017, Nature published the results of the Scan Pyramids project, led by Mehdi Tayoubi (Hip Institute, Paris) and Kunihiro Morishima (University of Nagoya, Japan): there is a “huge void”, at least 30 meters long, within the Pyramid of Cheops.
Discovering its function and content clearly is a most passionate challenge for archaeologists.
Giulio Magli, Director of the Department of Mathematics and Professor of Archaeoastronomy at the Politecnico di Milano, has formulated one of the first hypotheses of interpretation.
“Cheop’s Pyramid, built around 2550 BC, is one of the largest and most complex monuments in the history of architecture. Its internal rooms are accessible through narrow tunnels, one of which, before arriving at the funerary chamber, widens and rises suddenly forming the so-called Great Gallery. The newly discovered room is over this gallery, but does not have a practical function of “relieving weight ” from it, because the roof of the gallery itself was already built with a corbelled technique for this very reason.”
So what does that mean?
“There is a possible interpretation, which is in good agreement with what we know about the Egyptian funerary religion as witnessed in the Pyramids Texts. In these texts it is said that the pharaoh, before reaching the stars of the north, will have to pass the “gates of the sky” and sit on his “throne of iron”.
Within the Pyramid there are four narrow shafts, the width of a handkerchief, directed to the stars. The pharaoh’s afterlife was in fact, according to the Texts, in the sky, and in particular among the stars of the north, like the Big Dipper and Draco. Two of the four channels open onto the facades of the monument, while the other two run into small doors. One of the two doors, the south one, has been explored several times without results, while the north one is still sealed.
These doors are with all probabilities representative of the “gates of the sky” and the north one could well lead into the newly discovered room. The room may contain, at its upper end and exactly under the apex of the great pyramid, an object needed by Cheops after crossing the doors: the “iron throne” mentioned in the Pyramid Texts.
We can get an idea of how this object could be, looking at the throne of Cheop’s mother, Queen Hetepheres, which has been found in pieces and reconstructed by Harward University. It is a low chair of cedar wood covered with sheets of gold and faience. Cheops’ could be similar, but coated with thin iron sheets. Of course it would not be melted iron, but meteoritic iron that is, fallen from the sky in the form of Iron meteorites (distinguishable due to the high percentage of the element Nickel) and again cited in the Texts. It is certain that the Egyptians knew this material for many centuries before Cheops, and continued to use it for special items designed for the Pharaohs during millennia: just think of the famous Tutankamon dagger.
A way to check or discard this hypothesis exists: a new exploration of the north shaft. This is a long-awaited exploration, long before the room’s discovery. At present, it is difficult to say with certainty that the northern channel leads into the newly discovered room – the “big void” as called by its discoverers – because the available images are approximate. The Scan Pyramid project indeed used a non-invasive technique based on the measurement of muons: elementary particles that are generated in cosmic rays and are absorbed differently depending on the materials they go through. The result is similar to a radiography which must be interpreted.
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North-south section of the Great Pyramid showing (dust-filled area) the hypothetical chamber, in connection with the lower southern shaft. The upper southern shaft does not intersect the chamber (as instead suggested by the section) because, when viewed in plan, it is displaced to the west with respect to the Great Gallery. Giulio Magli
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A view of the Giza Pyramids from the east with the Great Pyramid in the foreground. Giulio Magli
PLOS—Ancient DNA from the Phoenician remains found in Sardinia and Lebanon could provide insight into the extent of integration with settled communities and human movement during ancient times, according to a study* published January 10, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by E. Matisoo-Smith from the University of Otago, New Zealand and Pierre Zalloua from the Lebanese American University, Beirut, and colleagues. The researchers looked at mitochondrial genomes, which are maternally inherited, in a search for markers of Phoenician ancestry.
The Phoenicians were an ancient civilization who emerged in 1800 BCE in the Northern Levant and by the 9th century BCE had spread their culture across the Mediterranean to parts of Asia, Europe and Africa through their trade networks and settlements. Despite their widespread influence, most of what we know about the Phoenicians comes from Greek and Egyptian documents on this civilization.
The authors of this study analyzed Phoenicians’ ancient DNA to investigate how Phoenicians integrated with the Sardinian communities they settled. The researchers found 14 new ancient mitogenome sequences from pre-Phoenician (~1800 BCE) and Phoenician (~700-400 BCE) samples from Lebanon and Sardinia and then compared these with 87 new complete mitogenomes from modern Lebanese and 21 recently published pre-Phoenician ancient mitogenomes from Sardinia.
The researchers found evidence of continuity of some lineages of indigenous Sardinians after Phoenician settlement, which suggests that there was integration between Sardinians and Phoenicians in Monte Sirai. They also discovered evidence of new, unique mitochondrial lineages in Sardinia and Lebanon, which may indicate the movement of women from sites in the Near East or North Africa to Sardinia and the movement of European women to Lebanon. Combined, the authors suggest that there was a degree of female mobility and genetic diversity in Phoenician communities, indicating that migration and cultural assimilation were common occurrences.
Pierre Zalloua says, “this DNA evidence reflects the inclusive and multicultural nature of Phoenician society. They were never conquerors, they were explorers and traders”.
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A sampling from the Tomb 351 Monte Sirai. Michele Guirguis
UPPSALA UNIVERSITY—In a new study published in PLoS Biology, an international research team suggests Scandinavia was populated by two main migrations after the last glacial maximum: an initial migration of groups from the south (modern day Denmark and Germany) and an additional migration from the north-east, following the ice-free Atlantic coast.
After the last glacial maximum more than 10,000 years ago, Scandinavia was one of the last parts of Europe that became ice-free and thus habitable for humans. In the new study, a team of interdisciplinary researchers assembled archaeological and genetic data in combination with the latest results of climate modeling in order to study the early post-glacial settlers of Scandinavia.
The team collected human remains of seven individuals from the Norwegian Atlantic coast and the Baltic islands of Gotland and Stora Karlsö. The remains were radiocarbon-dated to more than 8,000 years before present and belonged to a part of the Stone Age called the Mesolithic. DNA was extracted from bones and teeth for genome sequencing. For one individual, the team was able to reconstruct one of the highest quality genomes of any prehistoric individual so far.
The team compared the genomic data to the genetic variation of Mesolithic hunter-gathers from other parts of Europe.
“We were surprised to see that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from the Norwegian west coast were genetically more similar to contemporaneous populations from east of the Baltic Sea while hunter-gatherers from what is Sweden today were genetically more similar to other hunter-gatherers from central and western Europe”, says population-geneticist Torsten Günther of Uppsala University, one of the lead authors of the study.
This contradiction between genetics and geography can be explained by two main migrations into Scandinavia after the last glacial maximum: an initial migration of groups from the south – modern day Denmark and Germany – and an additional migration from the north-east, following the ice-free Atlantic coast.
Obtaining genomic data from the Norwegian individuals was the key to understanding the migration routes. The genetic patterns overlap the distribution patterns of different stone tool techniques, and archaeological artifacts and diet isotopes show that the Scandinavian hunter-gatherers used different stone tool technology and relied on different food sources.
“The archaeological sites have been subject to different types of research for more than a century, it is exciting to see what the genetic data can add to our understanding of these hunter-gatherer groups”, says osteoarcheologist Jan Storå of Stockholm University, one of the senior authors of the study.
The comprehensive data allowed the team a deeper study of the population dynamics in Mesolithic Scandinavia. One consequence of the two groups mixing was a surprisingly large number of genetic variants in Scandinavian hunter-gatherers.
“These groups were genetically more diverse than the groups that lived in central, western and southern Europe at the same time. That is in stark contrast to the pattern seen today where more genetic variation is found in southern Europe and less in the north,” says Mattias Jakobsson, population-geneticist at Uppsala University and one of the senior authors of the study.
The two groups migrating into Scandinavia in the Mesolithic were genetically distinct and displayed different physical appearance. The people from the south likely displayed blue-eyes and dark skin and the people from the northeast a variation of eye colors and pale skin.
Similar to northern Europeans today, the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were facing a high latitude climate associated with low levels of sunlight in winter causing low temperatures, which would be a challenging environment to live in. Humans can cope with such conditions physiologically and by changes in behavior, but in the long term there is also potential for genetic adaptation to such environments.
The team found that genetic variants associated with light skin and eye pigmentation were carried, on average, in greater frequency among Scandinavian hunter-gatherers than their ancestors from other parts of Europe.
“That suggests local adaptation taking place in Scandinavia after these groups arrived which is in line with the world-wide pattern of pigmentation decreasing with distance to the equator,” Torsten Günther explains.
While comparing the Mesolithic groups to modern-day northern Europeans, the team found particular similarities in a gene associated with physical performance.
“It will be interesting to see if future studies can show how this gene affects the physiological adaptation to cold environments,” says Torsten Günther.
Modern-day people of northern Europe trace relatively little genetic material back to the Mesolithic Scandinavians.
“What we have found is that already 10,000 years ago, after Scandinavia became ice-free, different groups of migrants entered the Scandinavian Peninsula. A migration process into Scandinavia that we have seen over and over again; later in the Stone Age, in the Bronze Age and in historical times,” says Mattias Jakobsson.
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The excavations of Stora Förvar on Stora Karlsö. Hjalmar Stolpe. Antiquarian Topographical Archives (ATA), Stockholm.
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Skeletal fragments from the Hummervikholmen site. Beate Kjørslevik
AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY—An archaeologist from The Australian National University (ANU) is set to redefine what we know about elderly people in cultures throughout history, and dispel the myth that most people didn’t live much past 40 prior to modern medicine.
Christine Cave, a PhD Scholar with the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology, has developed a new method for determining the age-of-death for skeletal remains based on how worn the teeth are.
Using her method, which she developed by analysing the wear on teeth and comparing with living populations of comparable cultures, she examined the skeletal remains of three Anglo-Saxon English cemeteries for people buried between the years 475 and 625.
Her research determined that it was not uncommon for people to live to old age.
“People sometimes think that in those days if you lived to 40 that was about as good as it got. But that’s not true.
“For people living traditional lives without modern medicine or markets the most common age of death is about 70, and that is remarkably similar across all different cultures.”
Ms Cave said the myth has been built up due to deficiencies in the way older people are categorised in archaeological studies.
“Older people have been very much ignored in archaeological studies and part of the reason for that has been the inability to identify them,” she said.
“When you are determining the age of children you use developmental points like tooth eruption or the fusion of bones that all happen at a certain age.
“Once people are fully grown it becomes increasingly difficult to determine their age from skeletal remains, which is why most studies just have a highest age category of 40 plus or 45 plus.
“So effectively they don’t distinguish between a fit and healthy 40 year old and a frail 95 year old.
“It’s meaningless if you are trying to study elderly people.”
Ms Cave said the new method will give archaeologists a more accurate view of past societies and what life was like for older people.
For those in the three cemeteries she studied, which were Greater Chesterford in Essex, Mill Hill in Kent, and Worthy Park in Hampshire, she found a marked difference in the way male and female people of old age were buried.
“Women were more likely to be given prominent burials if they died young, but were much less likely to be given one if they were old,” she said.
“The higher status men are generally buried with weapons, like a spear and a shield or occasionally a sword.
“Women were buried with jewellery, like brooches, beads and pins. This highlights their beauty which helps explain why most of the high-status burials for women were for those who were quite young.”
Ms Cave’s study “Sex and the Elderly” was published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.
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Teeth examined as part of Christine Cave’s research. Credit: ANU
MCMASTER UNIVERSITY, HAMILTON, ON, Jan. 4, 2018 – A team of scientists has sequenced the complete genome of an ancient strain of the Hepatitis B virus (HBV), shedding new light on a pervasive, complex and deadly pathogen that today kills nearly one million people every year.
While little is known about its evolutionary history and origin, the findings confirm the idea that HBV has existed in humans for centuries.
The findings are based on genomic data extracted from the mummified remains of a small child buried in the Basilica of Saint Domenico Maggiore in Naples, Italy.
Previous scientific analysis of the 16th century remains—which did not include DNA testing—suggested the child was infected with Variola virus, or smallpox. In fact, this was the oldest evidence for the presence of smallpox in Medieval remains and a critical time stamp for its origins.
Using advanced sequencing techniques, researchers now suggest otherwise—the child was actually infected by HBV. Interestingly, children infected with HBV infections can develop a facial rash, known as Gianotti-Crosti syndrome. This may have been misidentified as smallpox and illustrates the trickiness of identifying infectious disease in the past.
The findings are published online in the journal PLOS Pathogens.
“These data emphasize the importance of molecular approaches to help identify the presence of key pathogens in the past, enabling us to better constrain the time they may have infected humans,” explains Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist with the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre and a principal investigator with the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research.
Using small tissue samples of skin and bone, scientists were able to tease out tiny fragments of DNA and then stitch together pieces of genetic information to create a much more complete picture.
While viruses often evolve very rapidly—sometimes in just days—researchers suggest that this ancient strain of HBV has changed little over the last 450 years and that the evolution of this virus is complex.
While the team found a close relationship between the ancient and modern strains of HBV, both are missing what is known as temporal structure. In other words, there is no measurable rate of evolution throughout the 450-year period which separates the mummy sample from modern samples.
By some estimates, more than 350 million people living today have chronic HBV infections while approximately one-third of the global population has been infected at some point in their lives. Researchers suggest that the underline the importance of studying ancient viruses.
“The more we understand about the behaviour of past pandemics and outbreaks, the greater our understanding of how modern pathogens might work and spread, and this information will ultimately help in their control,” says Poinar.
Image: The mummified remains of a small child buried in the Basilica of Saint Domenico Maggiore in Naples, Italy. Previous analysis of the 16th century remains had suggested the child was infected with smallpox, in what had been believed to be the earliest dated evidence of the virus. Advanced sequencing techniques, now suggest the child was actually infected by Hepatitis B. Credit: Gino Fornaciari, University of Pisa
Direct genetic traces of the earliest Native Americans have been identified for the first time in a new study. The genetic evidence suggests that people may have entered the continent in a single migratory wave, perhaps arriving more than 20,000 years ago.
The data, which came from archaeological finds in Alaska, also points to the existence of a previously unknown Native American population, whom academics have named “Ancient Beringians”.
The findings are being published in the journal Nature and present possible answers to a series of long-standing questions about how the Americas were first populated.
It is widely accepted that the earliest settlers crossed from what is now Russia into Alaska via an ancient land bridge spanning the Bering Strait which was submerged at the end of the last Ice Age. Issues such as whether there was one founding group or several, when they arrived, and what happened next, are the subject of extensive debate, however.
In the new study, an international team of researchers led by academics from the Universities of Cambridge and Copenhagen sequenced the full genome of an infant – a 6-week-old girl named Xach’itee’aanenh t’eede gay, or Sunrise Child-girl, by the local Native community – whose remains were found at the Upward Sun River archaeological site in Alaska in 2013.
To their surprise, they found that although the child had lived around 11,500 years ago, long after people first arrived in the region, her genetic information did not match either of the two recognised branches of early Native Americans, which are referred to as Northern and Southern. Instead, she appeared to have belonged to an entirely distinct Native American population, which they called Ancient Beringians.
The DNA from the infant has provided an unprecedented window into the history of her people, said Ben Potter, one of the lead authors of the study and a professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She and the 11,500-year-old remains of a younger female infant, also found at the Upward Sun River site in 2015, were closely related, likely first cousins. The younger infant has been named “Ye?kaanenh T’eede Gaay” (dawn twilight girl-child).
Further analyses then revealed that the Ancient Beringians were an offshoot of the same ancestor population as the Northern and Southern Native American groups, but that they separated from that population earlier in its history. This timeline allowed the researchers to construct a picture of how and when the continent might have been settled by a common, founding population of ancestral Native Americans, that gradually divided into these different sub-groupings.
The study was led by Professor Eske Willerslev, who holds positions both at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, UK, and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
“The Ancient Beringians diversified from other Native Americans before any ancient or living Native American population sequenced to date. It’s basically a relict population of an ancestral group which was common to all Native Americans, so the sequenced genetic data gave us enormous potential in terms of answering questions relating to the early peopling of the Americas,” he said.
“We were able to show that people probably entered Alaska before 20,000 years ago. It’s the first time that we have had direct genomic evidence that all Native Americans can be traced back to one source population, via a single, founding migration event.”
The study compared data from the Upward Sun River remains with both ancient genomes, and those of numerous present-day populations. This allowed the researchers first to establish that the Ancient Beringian group was more closely related to early Native Americans than their Asian and Eurasian ancestors, and then to determine the precise nature of that relationship and how, over time, they split into distinct populations.
Until now, the existence of two separate Northern and Southern branches of early Native Americans has divided academic opinion regarding how the continent was populated. Researchers have disagreed over whether these two branches split after humans entered Alaska, or whether they represent separate migrations.
The findings suggest two new scenarios for populating the New World: One is that there were two distinct groups of people who crossed over the Beringian land bridge. A second is that one group of people crossed over the land bridge and then split in Beringia into two groups: Ancient Beringians and other Native Americans, with the latter moving south of the ice sheets 15,700 years ago.
In any case, the Upward Sun River genome shows that Ancient Beringians were isolated from the common, ancestral Native American population, both before the Northern and Southern divide, and after the ancestral source population was itself isolated from other groups in Asia. The researchers say that this means it is likely there was one wave of migration into the Americas, with all subdivisions taking place thereafter.
According to the researchers’ timeline, the ancestral population first emerged as a separate group around 36,000 years ago, probably somewhere in northeast Asia. Constant contact with Asian populations continued until around 25,000 years ago, when the gene flow between the two groups ceased. This cessation was probably caused by brutal changes in the climate, which isolated the Native American ancestors. “It therefore probably indicates the point when people first started moving into Alaska,” Willerslev said.
Around the same time, there was a level of genetic exchange with an ancient North Eurasian population. Previous research by Willerslev has shown that a relatively specific, localised level of contact between this group, and East Asians, led to the emergence of a distinctive ancestral Native American population.
Ancient Beringians themselves then separated from the ancestral group earlier than either the Northern or Southern branches around 20,000 years ago. Genetic contact continued with their Native American cousins, however, at least until the Upward Sun River girl was born in Alaska around 8,500 years later.
The geographical proximity required for ongoing contact of this sort led the researchers to conclude that the initial migration into the Americas had probably already taken place when the Ancient Beringians broke away from the main ancestral line. Jos Vctor Moreno-Mayar, from the University of Copenhagen, said: “It looks as though this Ancient Beringian population was up there, in Alaska, from 20,000 years ago until 11,500 years ago, but they were already distinct from the wider Native American group.”
Finally, the researchers established that the Northern and Southern Native American branches only split between 17,000 and 14,000 years ago which, based on the wider evidence, indicates that they must have already been on the American continent south of the glacial ice.
The divide probably occurred after their ancestors had passed through, or around, the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets – two vast glaciers which covered what is now Canada and parts of the northern United States, but began to thaw at around this time.
The continued existence of this ice sheet across much of the north of the continent would have isolated the southbound travellers from the Ancient Beringians in Alaska, who were eventually replaced or absorbed by other Native American populations. Although modern populations in both Alaska and northern Canada belong to the Northern Native American branch, the analysis shows that these derive from a later “back” migration north, long after the initial migration events. What this suggests is that the Ancient Beringian people remained in the Far North for thousands of years, while the ancestors of other Native American peoples spread south throughout the rest of North America. The DNA results, along with other archaeological data, suggest that Athabascan ancestors moved north again, possibly around 6,000 years ago, eventually absorbing or replacing the Ancient Beringian population and establishing deep roots in their ancestral lands.
“One significant aspect of this research is that some people have claimed the presence of humans in the Americas dates back earlier – to 30,000 years, 40,000 years, or even more,” Willerslev added. “We cannot prove that those claims are not true, but what we are saying, is that if they are correct, they could not possibly have been the direct ancestors to contemporary Native Americans.”
The study, Terminal Pleistocene Alaskan genome reveals first founding population of Native Americans, is published in Nature.
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Excavations at the Upward Sun River archaeological site in Alaska. The new study shows that the remains found there belonged to members of a previously unknown Native American population, whom academics have named “Ancient Beringians”. Credit: Ben Potter
UNIVERSITY OF GRANADA—An international team, including researchers from the UGR’s anthropology group led by Prof. Miguel Cecilio Botella López of the Department of Legal Medicine, Toxicology and Physical Anthropology, has discovered the world’s oldest known cases of breast cancer and multiple myeloma (a type of bone marrow cancer). The discoveries were made by conducting CT scans of two mummies found in the pharaonic necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa in Aswan, Egypt.
Following their thorough analysis of the mummies, the international research team has established that the woman with breast cancer died around 2000 B.C., while the man with multiple myeloma died around 1800 B.C. Both individuals belonged to the ruling classes (or at least to the wealthy classes) of the governing Egyptian families of Elephantine.
The researchers employed computed tomography scanning techniques (CT scans) to analyse the mummies. CT scanning techniques provide better results than traditional methods, which invariably lead to significant loss of the mummy wrapping as well as to partial destruction of the dressing and the body itself.
Moreover, tomography scanning techniques are more precise when it comes to ascertaining information about the insides of the mummies, as well as capturing minute details in the dressing and about the embalming techniques employed.
The same CT scanning technique was also applied to two fully intact mummies from the Late Period of ancient Egypt — the dressings on which were also still intact.
Prof. Botella López explains: “Both mummies were still wrapped in spectacular shrouds of multi-coloured faience beads, which in turn resemble a mask. The body structures of mummies from this period are superbly preserved and we can discern very clearly what their faces looked like.” Through reconstructions carried out using specific software, researchers were able to conduct detailed studies of these mummies from the Late Period, one of which is the body of a boy around 9 years of age, while the other is that of a young teenage girl.
Meanwhile, the two oldest mummies — those which have been affected by cancer—have been reduced to bones and are wrapped in a considerable number of bandages. Details such as these suggest that embalming techniques changed over time and that the techniques described by the Greek historian Herodotus were only established in the Late Period, at least in that southern part of Ancient Egypt, from the 10th century onward.
The research team, led by Dr. Mamoun, obtained the images at the Radiodiagnosis Service of Aswan University Hospital. They employed a next-generation CT scanner capable of performing 124 tomographic slices simultaneously and with a very high degree of precision. Staff from the Radiodiagnosis Service of the “Campus de la Salud” Hospital in Granada have also collaborated on this groundbreaking research project.
Studies conducted on the two oldest mummies, which reveal evidence of breast cancer and multiple myeloma—the oldest known cases to date—have enabled researchers to confirm that these diseases were already present in humans in ancient times. The research findings also confirm that these individuals belonged to an advanced society with enough resources to support and care for them throughout the long course of their diseases, at a time when no cures or treatments were available.
No traces of disease have been found in the mummies from the Late Period. Consequently, researchers posit acute infections as the probable cause of death in these instances, since infections either result in death or are cured within short time periods and, as a result; they do not leave any marks on bones. In ancient times, infections were the most common cause of death and, overall, they are currently still the most common cause of death across the globe, despite the vast range of treatment options that have been made available in modern times.
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Image of the mummy obtained using the CT scanner. Credit: Patricia Mora
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UNIVERSITY OF EXETER—Bones dug up from under an Exeter street may be the remains of the first ever turkey dinner in England, archaeologists believe.
The 16th century bones – two femurs (thigh bones) and an ulna (wing) – have been analysed by University of Exeter archaeologists and identified as among some the first turkeys to be brought to England from the Americas. The bones are on display at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM) where Spanish, German and Italian pottery and glassware from the same site are also displayed. These items could have been on the table when the turkey dinner was served. The first turkeys were introduced to England in 1524 or 1526 by William Strickland, a member of Parliament in the reign of Elizabeth the first, following a voyage to the Americas.
Strickland is recorded to have bought six turkeys from Native American traders, and after he sailed back with them to Bristol, which is 80 miles away from Exeter, sold them for tuppence each.
When turkeys first appeared in England they would have been a rare sight and the first ones are more likely to have been kept as pets for display of wealth rather than served as food.
The bird became very popular after 1550 and already a common sight at Christmas dinners by the 1570s, before Thanksgiving in America was even invented. Popular history even suggests that Henry VIII may have had turkey for Christmas. The bird became so popular that thousands of turkeys were driven in to London like cattle in the 17th century.
The bones were found in 1983 as part of excavations at Paul Street, in central Exeter, before the building of a shopping centre but have never been identified or dated. Archaeologists at the University of Exeter have now examined the bones and judging from pottery lying beside them, they date from the period 1520 to 1550.
Professor Alan Outram, zooarchaeologist and Head of Archaeology at Exeter, said: “As the date of these bones overlaps with the historical evidence of Stickland’s introduction of the birds, the remains of this feast may well represent the earliest physical evidence for a turkey dinner in Britain. This is an important discovery and could allow more research to be carried out about early domestic breeds and how the turkey has changed genetically since the 16th century.”
Analysis by Malene Lauritsen, a post-graduate researcher in the University of Exeter’s archaeology department, has proved from the bones that the turkeys were butchered and were probably eaten as part of a feast by wealthy people. The pottery lying alongside was also of high quality.
They were found together with the remains of a veal calf, several chickens, at least one goose and a sheep. This selection of food – some of which were very expensive at the time – suggests this was the rubbish created by a feast attended by people of high status.
“What is exciting about these turkey bones found in Exeter is that they date from almost exactly the same time as the first birds came to England. Their age certainly means it is possible that these are the remains of one of the first turkeys to come to England, or a turkey bred from this group,” Ms Lauritsen said.
“It is extremely rare to find turkey bones from this period. Remains from the first half of the 16th century have only been found in two other sites in Britain, the oldest from at St Alban’s Abbey in Hertfordshire. I have found cut marks on the bones, showing the birds were butchered. We can only guess at who ate them, and for what reason, but turkey would have been very expensive and the same household certainly ate other pricy meat too, so this must have been a special occasion.”
Wild turkeys were eaten by native Americans and their feathers were also used for ceremonial purposes, including headdresses and robes.
They were first brought to Britain from America by William Strickland, a Puritan, who traded them with Native Americans. He continued to import them and made so much money, he was able to build a stately home in Yorkshire.
Strickland, who became an MP and was known for his ferocious debating style, adopted the turkey as the symbol on his family crest in 1550. His coat of arms is reported to be the first depiction of the turkey in Britain. The village church where Strickland is buried has images of turkeys depicted in stained-glass windows, a carved lectern and even stone sculptures on the walls. The bones found during excavations at Paul street, in central Exeter, have been stored in boxes in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum’s stores, and are on temporary display.
The bones are part of the collections at RAMM, and are on temporary display to celebrate the new discovery about their origins. In February 2020, the bones will be displayed in RAMM’s Making History Gallery alongside all the discoveries made from a wider archaeological research project with the University of Exeter called “Exeter: A Place in Time”.
RAMM Assistant Curator Tom Cadbury said: “This is a fascinating discovery and really shows what an international place Tudor Exeter was. RAMM already displays some of the Spanish, German and Italian pottery and glassware found on the site, perhaps the turkey dinner was eaten off one of these. RAMM welcomes research on the archaeological finds from Exeter in the museum; evidence such as this helps us uncover stories about the lives of past people in Exeter.”
Cllr Rachel Sutton, Lead Councillor for Economy & Culture and Deputy Leader of Exeter City Council said: “Exeter is blessed having a museum and a university that are both world-class. Working together, they are uncovering information about Exeter’s past that would have been inconceivable only decades ago. Collaborations such as these are vital to Exeter’s success.”
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Malene Lauritsen with turkey bones. Credit: University of Exeter
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As Founder and Editor of Popular Archaeology Magazine, Dan is a freelance writer and journalist specializing in archaeology. He studied anthropology and archaeology in undergraduate and graduate school and has been an active participant on archaeological excavations in the U.S. and abroad. He is the creator and administrator of Archaeological Digs, a popular weblog about archaeological excavation and field school opportunities.
A team of archaeologists excavating at the site of Ziyaret Tepe in southeastern Turkey discovered a rare and unique cuneiform tablet — one that tells a story of frustration and desperation expressed by an ancient Assyrian official, providing a glimpse of conditions in the Assyrian Empire just before its collapse in the 7th century, B.C.
Recovered within the remains of what archaeologists have identified as an administrative complex, the clay tablet, small enough to be held in the palm of one’s hand, features, in cuneiform script, a letter written by Mannu-ki-libbali, who was a senior official of the Assyrian provincial capital of Tushan. Tushan was a 7th-century city that governed an area on the outskirts of the Assyrian Empire. In the letter, he responds to an order to assemble a unit of chariotry, but he explains that all of the skilled professionals he needed to accomplish it had already fled the city. He expresses his frustration and resignation with these final statements:
“How can I command? ….. Death will come out of it. No one will escape. I am done!”
“This letter is unparalleled,” writes the excavation leadership in an article published in Popular Archaeology Magazine. “It can only have been written as the front line drew close to Tushan and the infrastructure of the empire collapsed. As a first-hand account of Assyria in its death-throes it is unique.”
The administrative complex in which the tablet was found also yielded a remarkable archive of cuneiform tablets. Totaling 27, they were discovered in fragments on the floors of the rooms of the complex. “The contents of the tablets include movements of grain, the loan of a slave, lists of personnel, the resettlement of people and a census enumerating military officers and their agricultural holdings,” wrote the excavation leadership about the finds. “But the majority of the tablets deal with transactions of barley – deliveries from outlying farmsteads, loans and payments for rations.”They span the period from 614 BC to 611 BC — around the time of the the fall of Nineveh.
“This is the first time that Assyrian administrative texts from this period have ever been found,” stated dig directors Timothy Matney and John MacGinnis. The archive provides a window on the Assyrian world as the Babylonian king Nabopolassar was waging military campaigns against a disintegrating Assyrian empire.
Full-scale excavations at Ziyaret Tepe began in 2000 and lasted for 12 seasons. Located on the upper Tigris river abut 60 km east of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey, the site consists of a central mound 30 m high and the remains of a surrounding lower town about 30 hectares in area. The project, which was headed in the field by Prof. Timothy Matney of the University of Akron, Ohio, began with geophysical prospection and ceramic surface collection, and work at the site eventually yielded structural and artifact remains that evidenced a massive provincial capital that flourished for almost 300 years. According to written records, it was founded on a previously occupied site by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II in 882 BC, but was then finally captured by the Babylonian king Nabopolassar in 611 BC. Archaeologists have uncovered a palace, an administrative complex, elite residences, and a military barracks at the site.
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Letter ZTT 22, in which the writer Mannu-ki-libbali reports on the disintegration of the military infrastructure as the Assyrian empire collapsed. Ziyaret Tepe Archaeological Project
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Dr. Scott Stripling is the Director of Excavations at Shiloh. Previously Stripling directed the excavations at Khirbet el-Maqatir from 2013-2016, served as Field Supervisor of the Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project from 2005 to 2010, and as a supervisor of the Jerusalem Temple Mount Salvage Project in Jerusalem.
Mrs. Suzanne Lattimer serves as Assistant Director at Shiloh. She received her M.A. in Near Eastern Archaeology and Semitic Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) in Deerfield, Illinois. She has also dug at Tel Dor, Israel in 2004, and in the Great Smoky Mountains with the National Park Service in 2001. She has served as a Field Archaeologist from 2014 through the inaugural season at Shiloh.
“‘Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.” — Jeremiah 7:12
Numerous questions remain unanswered. Was the site [Shiloh] practically unoccupied during the Bronze Age, or did the Israelites occupy a site already sacred? When did they take it, during the Bronze Age, or at the beginning of Early Iron? This is another of the sites, which, like Ai and Jericho, can assist in determining the date and character of the Hebrew conquest. Was the place unoccupied during the Middle and Late Iron Ages, that is after the loss of the Ark? And was it destroyed by the Philistines, or did it gradually fall into ruins after the loss of the Ark? — McCown, Chester C. “Archaeological News.” American Journal of Archaeology 34, no. 1 (1930): 96.
Another excavation day begins as diggers disembark from the bus. The sun peaks over the Transjordan Mountains in the east, illuminating the distant twin towers in Amman, Jordan. Silently, or so it seems, the workers climb the short distance from the parking lot to the site, a walk that pilgrims have made for millennia. Some appear half asleep while others appear as if focussing intently on the day ahead. Once arrived, volunteers disperse in smaller groups to their respective squares. A family with younger children stops at the first square while a group of college students pours into another. An older couple slowly and steadily makes their way up to the site to become the final volunteers. Blue shirts, interspersed among the crowd, are supervisors who have invested years of their lives climbing similar hills to solve similar conundrums. But Shiloh, as this site is popularly known, stands unique among the ubiquitous mounds in the southern Levant. Here, in the tribal territory of biblical Ephraim, Joshua, according to the biblical account, ordered a tabernacle to be erected as a home for the Ark of the Covenant. Here, for the believers, a sacrificial system closed the gap between human sinfulness and celestial perfection. In just seven hours, the shofar will blow, signaling the end of fieldwork for another day. But until that happens, archaeologists, students and volunteers will have excavated 1,750 pieces of pottery, 35 other objects, the remains of several new walls and several new installations or structures, and perhaps even some glyptic remains………
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Sun rising over the eastern mountains. Photo by Suzanne Lattimer
In 1838, the great American Orientalist Edward Robinson linked the ruins at Khirbet Seilun, 20 miles north of Jerusalem, with the famous Israelite cultic site of Shiloh. Almost three decades later, in 1866, Major Charles Wilson, on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund surveyed the ruins (Wilson, 1873, 38). A few years later the French explorer Victor Guérin documented what he observed at the site (Guérin, 1875, 21–23). In the 1880s, Conder and Kitchner did the same in their Surveyof Western Palestine (1882, 368). Following World War I, the Danish set their sights on excavating Shiloh, with initial soundings being executed by Aege Schmidt in 1922. With the help of Albright, Schmidt correctly identified the basic ceramic sequence at Shiloh (Albright, 1923, 10). Three seasons of excavation followed in 1926, 1929, and 1932 under the skilled direction of Hans Kjaer, with the helpful guidance of Albright and steadfast support of Schmidt. Kjaer tragically died in the middle of the 1932 season. The cause of his death remains uncertain. Glueck describes it as exhaustion from the excavation (Glueck, 1933, 66), while others attribute it to dysentery (Anonymous, BAR, 3). Albright handed the reins of the excavation to his brilliant protégé Nelson Glueck who promptly closed the dig, without explaining his reasons.
In 1963, the Danish, under Svend Holm-Nielsen, returned to execute a final series of soundings before publishing the long-awaited final excavation report in 1969. From 1981 to 1984, Professor Israel Finkelstein, on behalf of Bar Ilan University, excavated Shiloh, publishing his final report in 1993. Finkelstein corrected some of the errors of the Danish excavation. Notably, he discovered a large bone deposit in Area D, with a large quantity of Late Bronze Age (LB, or c. 1483–1177 B.C.)pottery, some of which was cultic. Furthermore, Finkelstein states, “There were also several dozen Cypriot sherds. Most of the pottery is of the LB I horizon. There is also a small quantity of LB II pottery, although not from the end of the period” (Finkelstein, 1993, 45).
In Area C, Finkelstein connected with the work of the Danes and fully exposed Iron Age (IA) I (c. 1177 – 980 B.C.) “storage rooms” filled with pithoi of the collared-rim type. Surprisingly, these storerooms lie outside the perimeter wall. To us, this points to a construction date prior to the Philistine arrival in 1177 B.C. when Shiloh, like the meaning of its name, operated in relative tranquility. In contrast, Finkelstein assigns a date of c. 1150 B.C. to the Area C buildings. Shortly after Finkelstein concluded his work, Ze’ev Yeivin, on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, conducted limited excavations on the scarp just north of the tel (the northern platform) followed by work in a few other areas. Based on the scarp’s dimensions, Wilson had advocated for it as the location of the Israelite tabernacle (Kaufman, 1988).
In the last decade, under the guidance of Hananya Hizmi, Staff officer of the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria, further excavations have been conducted near the summit, on the aforementioned scarp, and the churches and other structures along the southern approach to the site. Evgeny Aharonovic led the excavation of the churches, and Reut Ben-Arie supervised the work on the summit, northern scarp, and southeastern fortifications. In 2017, The Associates for Biblical Research (ABR), under the direction of Scott Stripling, conducted Season One of a planned multi-year expedition, which this article summarizes.
The ABR Excavations
Research Goals
Research Goals for the ABR excavation at Shiloh include the following:
1.Clarify the occupational history
2.Determine if the MB (Middle Bronze) III fortifications enclosed a city or just a temenos
3.Document cultic remains from the BA (Bronze Age) and IA (Iron Age)
4.Determine the extent of the BA, IA, ER (Early Roman), and Byz (Byzantine) occupation in Field H1 and on the summit
5.Compare the excavated remains at Shiloh with those in the Highlands Region, particularly the two sites previously excavated by ABR (Khirbet Nysia and Khirbet el-Maqatir)
6. Connect the work of the Kjaer on the northwest fortifications with the work of Finkelstein on the northeast fortifications
Occupational History of the Site
The time between c. 1750–1650 B.C., which corresponds to the “MB (Middle Bronze) IIb” period, witnessed the establishment of a village without walls at the site of Shiloh. Only pottery testifies to this foundational phase. During the ensuing period (“MB III/MB IIC”, or c. 1650–1483) the residents of Shiloh constructed a massive fortification system that enclosed 17 dunams (4.25 acres). MB III in the southern Levant witnessed a proliferation of similar fortification systems. Examples include Khirbet el-Maqatir, Jericho, Shechem, and Gezer.
The MB III city at Shiloh, designated as our City One, suffered destruction by unknown invaders, perhaps the recently expelled Hyksos from Egypt. Resilient residents quickly rebuilt, or at least resettled Shiloh as a cultic center in the Late Bronze Age. Pit deposits of bones, cultic vessels, scarabs, and an abundance of pottery establish this fact. The LB inhabitants apparently continued to use the MB infrastructure. Israel Finkelstein, who excavated Shiloh from 1981 to 1984 on behalf of Bar Ilan University, assigned an area that contained a faunal deposit to an Israelite cleanup of the remnants of Amorite sacrifices on the summit. The deposit, however, rich in LB pottery, may serve as evidence of the Israelite sacrificial system that began c. 1400 B.C., assuming an early date for the Exodus and Conquest. In Season One, we excavated an atypically large quantity of animal bones.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Amorites controlled the Shiloh region at the time of the conquest (Num 13:29 [Highlands]; Josh 7:7 [Ai]; 2 Sam 21:2 [Gibeon]), and this likely extended back to MB III (c. 1650–1483 B.C.). Shiloh plausibly fell within the realm of the city-state of Shechem to the north since it lies ten miles north of Khirbet el-Maqatir, a likely northern border fortress for the southern city-state of Jerusalem (Finkelstein and Na’aman, 2005, 186).
The site remained active until a possible second destruction, perhaps at the hands of the Philistines (1 Sam 4), which occurred c. 1050 B.C. Season One in Field H1 failed to yield evidence of this destruction in our Stratum V, so clarification of this proposed destruction ranks as a priority in the coming seasons. Prior to our first season of excavation, scholars widely held that IA (Iron Age) II (c. 980–587 B.C.) witnessed only a small settlement at Shiloh (1 Kgs 11:29 and 12:15; Jer 41:5), but we found that the IA II footprint exceeded that of the IA I footprint. This harmonizes with the findings of the Civil Administration team on the northern platform (Livyatan and Hizmi, 2017, 50). While we found a small amount of Persian and Early Hellenistic (c. 332–167 B.C.) pottery, the latter part of the Late Hellenistic period (c. 167–63 B.C.) saw a major resettlement at the site, and this pattern accelerated in the Early Roman (ER, or c. 63 B.C.–A.D. 136) period. We now have evidence that virtually the entire site experienced settlement in the ER period. Byzantine era (c. A.D. 325–636) builders matched this construction zeal. The city continued through the Early Islamic Age (c. A.D. 636–1099) and into the Middle Ages when apparently the Black Death or some other pestilence finally brought an end to life at ancient Shiloh.
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Above and below: Panorama of excavations on the last day. Photo by Suzanne Lattimer
Season One focused on ten 5×5 meter squares in Area H1 on the northern slope of the tel, with the intention of exposing the outside, top, and inside of the perimeter wall. This area lies between the Kjaer and Finkelstein excavations. We opened two squares (AC29 and AD29) directly connected with the Danish excavation in Areas F and H, thus continuing to expose the storage rooms inside the MB III fortification wall. At the other end of the field, Wall 6 in square AH30 clearly connects to Finkelstein’s work in Area K.
The MB III fortification wall (our Wall 1) ranges from 5.3 to 5.7 meters thick. It has a denticulated or “saw-tooth” pattern, a 1 meter wide jutting out of the entire wall, an unusual feature for the Highlands Region. Whether this massive wall functioned as a fortification wall or merely as a perimeter wall for a temenos remains unclear in light of the absence of domestic architecture from the BA and IA inside the wall. Finkelstein’s excavations revealed a massive glacis protecting the foundations of the wall, with no additional fortification. The absence of towers buttresses the hypothesis that the wall merely supported a religious platform. Our excavations proved inconclusive in this regard. While we found a glacis, it did not encircle the entire wall, perhaps being partially removed by later builders. All around Wall 1, we found an abundance of mud brick in various states of decay. This detritus suggests the existence of a mud brick superstructure atop the massive wall, a common building technique for this time period. This evidence hints at a city and not just a cultic platform. The range of colors suggests phases or refortification of the wall over time.
After the first season, we adjusted previous stratification theory and clarified the occupation on the northern side. Our excavations showed a larger IA II presence at the site than was previously realized. In fact, the IA II footprint in Area H1 exceeds the IA I footprint. It was also thought that the ER city only covered the southern portion of the tel. We, however, found extensive evidence of an ER presence on the northern side of the tel: portions of villas, objects, 100 coins, and a large volume of diagnostic pottery. Likewise, the Byzantine remains exceeded our expectations, as evidenced by large terrace walls and an enigmatic augment to the exterior of Wall 1A.
The Season One cultic remains consist of fragments of ceramic cultic stands. Of possible significance, the quantity of animal bones exceeded what we expected based on our previous excavation experience. Only additional excavation will determine if another large bone deposit, like Area D, exists at Shiloh. The forthcoming zooarchaeological report from Season One will answer a number of questions. Are the bones from animals connected with the biblical sacrificial system? Are these young animals, which are required in the biblical sacrificial system? The analysis will also illuminate the diet of the ancient inhabitants.
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Standing on bedrock on the outside of the MB II fortification wall. Photo by Michael Luddeni
We pride ourselves in the technological advances at Shiloh. We became one of the first in Israel to go 100% digital in the field. Supervisors record data on PDF forms on their iPads, which are backed up daily to our database. We methodically metal detect each locus, a rarity for this region. The resulting metallic discoveries are astounding. In our first season at Shiloh we located 240 coins (100 from Area H1), plus other metal objects like an MB axe and dagger. Outside of Jerusalem, we were the first, to our knowledge, to wet-sift our material. The additional excavation protocol yielded a scarab, beads, coins, and other small objects missed by the volunteers in the square and by the dry sift team. We plan to upgrade the wet-sift process for next season. We also plan to implement a three dimensional digital photography of the squares which will allow us to have a 3D rendering of each square, to see the progress of the excavation, and pinpoint measurements and objects. Furthermore, we regularly fly a drone to capture macro and micro overhead shots. All of this technology enables us to make data driven decisions regarding how, when, and where we excavate. Finally, several staff members, led by Leen Ritmeyer, spent the week following the excavation restoring several unstable walls that we exposed, using state-of the art materials and techniques.
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Staff Metal Detectorist, Ellen Jackson, shows off a coin she found using her metal detector. Photo by Michael Luddeni
It will take at least five seasons to adequately address our original research objectives. We also have a strong interest in excavating the summit of Tel Shiloh, which could take another few years. Hopefully, our work will shed light on the location of the Israelite Tabernacle at Shiloh. For a full discussion on this topic see my (Stripling) 2016 article in Bible and Spade (Stripling, 2016, 88-95).
The more that we uncover of Shiloh, the more questions tend to arise. So, we could be here for decades. For now, we take it one season at a time, filtering through almost 4,000 years of human history. Although Shiloh now ranks among the largest excavations in the southern Levant, we have saved a spot for you to join us. For details, visit www.digshiloh.org.
Image showing stratigraphic sequences above: Stratigraphic Sequence at Shiloh.Chart by Authors
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Albright, W.F. “The Danish Excavations at Shiloh.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 9 (Feb 1923): 10-11.
Anonymous. “Did the Philistines Destroy the Israelite Sanctuary at Shiloh?” Biblical Archaeology Review 1.2 (March-April 1975): 1-6.
Conder, C. R., and Kitchner, H. H. The Survey of Western Palestine Memoirs 2, Sheets VII–XVI, Samaria. London: Palestine Exploration Fund (1882).
Finkelstein, Israel, Shlomo Bunimovitz, Zvi Lederman, and Baruch Brandl, eds. Shiloh: The Archaeology of a Biblical Site. Monograph Series of the Institute of Archaeology 10. Tel Aviv, Israel: Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University (1993).
Finkelstein, Israel and Nadav Na’aman, Shechem of the Amarna Period and the Rise of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, IEJ 5 (2005): 172–93.
Glueck, Nelson. “Palestinian and Syrian Archaeology in 1932.” AmericanJournal of Archaeology Vol. 37.1 (Jan-Mar 1933): 160-172.
Guérin, V. Pp. 21–23 in Vol. 2 Samaria of The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. 3 vols. London, U.K., 1875.
Hizmi, Hananya, and Reut Livyatan-ben-Arie. “The Excavations at the Northern Platform of Tel Shiloh the 2012-2013 Seasons [Translated from Hebrew].” Edited by D. Scott Stripling and David E. Graves. Translated by Hillel Richman. Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin 62 (2017): 35–52.
Kaufman, Asher S. “Fixing the Site of the Tabernacle at Shiloh.” Biblical Archaeology Review 14.6 (Nov-Dec1988): 42-49.
Stripling, Scott. “The Israelite Tabernacle at Shiloh.” Bible and Spade 29.3 (Fall 2016): 88-95.
Wilson, Charles W. “Shiloh.” Palestinian Exploration Fund: Quarterly Statement 5–6 (1873): 22-39.
As Founder and Editor of Popular Archaeology Magazine, Dan is a freelance writer and journalist specializing in archaeology. He studied anthropology and archaeology in undergraduate and graduate school and has been an active participant on archaeological excavations in the U.S. and abroad. He is the creator and administrator of Archaeological Digs, a popular weblog about archaeological excavation and field school opportunities.
It was an instance of serendipity when, one day in late October, 2017, I happened to cross paths with William Kelso. We had no plans to meet, but I recognized him as I was snapping some photos of the most recent excavations within the vicinity of the old Memorial Church at the Jamestown Island, Virginia, archaeological site. Kelso is best known for his pioneering work discovering and uncovering the remains of the long-lost James Fort, thought for decades, until 1994, to have vanished into the water of the James River long ago as the river eroded its way into the island over the centuries. That discovery, and the hundreds of thousands of artifacts that have since come to light about America’s first permanent English colony, have arguably for many defined one of the great archaeological discovery stories of the past century.
We spoke only briefly, but it was enough to generate the distinct impression that Kelso, currently Head Archaeologist for the Jamestown Rediscovery Project and veteran of decades of research, had no plans to retire soon. His legacy, however, has already been made. Standing to witness were the manifestations of evidence for America’s first permanent English colony surrounding us as we talked, from sections of the reconstructed post-in-ground palisade walls of the original 1607 James Fort to the partial reconstruction overlying the footprint of the first-ever church structure built at the site, where Pocahontas and John Rolfe exchanged their marriage vows in 1614. This is aside from the more than two million total artifact haul accumulated since Kelso’s excavations at the site began, most of which is unseen by the public eye but some of which, over 4,000 strong, can be seen in the Archaerium museum only steps away from where we stood to talk.
For most people it would be enough to walk about the site. It is certainly impressive enough. But for other members of the public, like me, curiosity can only be sufficiently quenched by thoroughly reading about the details of the groundbreaking (pun intended) discoveries that have been made here over the past 20+ years. Kelso has made this possible with the publication of his most recent book, Jamestown,The Truth Revealed.
Kelso qualifies by making no secret of the fact that fully 60 percent of the book constitutes a re-publication of his previous book, The Buried Truth, to provide a fuller context or precursor to the discoveries made in more recent years, equally compellingly documented in the book’s second part, “More Buried Truth”.
It is the book’s second part, and more, that is the focus here. I relate it by way of the chapter headings assigned within the book itself:
Holy Ground
As the title of Part II’s first chapter suggests, excavation work at the site has uncovered some tantalizing evidence of the central role the English, or Anglican, Church played in the culture of Jamestown’s first colonists. Wasting little time after their arrival in 1607, the colonists, under the direction of its leadership, constructed one of America’s first English ecclesiastical buildings — a simple post-in-ground structure that saw several renovations or revisions in very short order. William Strachey, writer and Secretary of the Colony in 1610, wrote this first-hand account of the structure, in which Pocahontas and John Rolfe were famously married in 1614. It describes the church as it appeared during his tenure:
In the middest [of the fort]…is a pretty chapel…It is in length threescore foot, in breadth twenty-four…a chancel in it of cedar and a communion table of black walnut, and all the pews of cedar, with fair broad windows to shut and open…and the same wood, a pulpit of the same, with a front hewn hollow, like a canoe, with two bells at the west end. (1)
It was Strachey’s account of the structure, clues from other sources, and excavations in the southeastern sector of the James Fort that turned up the tell-tale signs of the building, revealing deep post-holes all in alignment very close to the dimensions Strachey described, and four burials located in what would be the chancel area of the church.
Although the traces of the church structure was big news when archaeologists first revealed the remaining soil stains left by the structure’s long-decayed post architecture, it was the burial discoveries that eventually commanded the most attention from the press and public. That is because, consistent with the long-held burial practice of English society at that time, high-status individuals were found to be buried beneath church chancels — and, in this case, it would be individuals who had played essential leadership roles in the founding and settlement development of Jamestown in its very earliest years. Forensic analysis of the skeletal remains, other archaeological evidence, chemical analysis, and historical documents confirmed with a confident degree of certainty that the individuals buried within the chancel space were likely Reverend Robert Hunt, Sir Ferdinando Wenman, Captain Gabriel Archer, and Captain William West, all known “movers and shakers” of the Jamestown settlement. Kelso, without getting the reader lost in what could have been a mind-numbing technical report, nonetheless goes into meticulous and satisfying detail about the discoveries in the text of the chapter.
Identifying the big names was sensational, without question. But how did the early church finds add to what we already knew about the first years of the Jamestown settlement?
Kelso emphasizes at least several major takeaways. First, that “the biographies of four practically anonymous Jamestown leaders have come to life,” and that “Wenman and West, both relatives of De La Warre [the Jamestown leader best known for having commanded the supply fleet that arrived in Jamestown in June 1610 after the ‘starving time’, in time to save the colony from a final collapse], were held in high esteem at Jamestown.” Second, it suggested how the established system of English hierarchy was transported to the New World, with the Anglican Church as the “center of the James Fort’s society, spiritual and secular.” And third, the excavation results confirmed that the first, 1608 – 1616 church structure stood apart and separate, although only yards away, from the later church built upon a brick-on-cobble foundation, the one initially built in 1617 and in which America’s first democratic assembly met in 1619. The church where Pocahontas was married was not the same church in which the seeds of the U.S. American government were planted. (2)
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Aerial view of the excavated features of the 1608 church. Photographed detail of an informational placard at the Jamestown historic site.Jamestown Rediscovery project, Preservation Virginia
Excavated burials in the 1608 church chancel area. Photographed detail of an informational placard at the Jamestown historic site. Jamestown Rediscovery project, Preservation Virginia
Above: Archaeologists unearthed a small silver box, placed at the time of his burial on top of Gabriel Archer’s coffin. Micro CT scanning analysis revealed it to be a reliquary, which is a container for holy relics. Although corrosion has precluded analysts from opening the box, scanning revealed that it contained fragments of bone, likely human, and fragments of a lead ampulla. Ampullae were small flasks used to carry blood, holy water, or oil. Why it was placed on Gabriel Archer’s coffin remains a mystery.
Artist’s illustration depicting the form and dimensions of the 1608 church as it would have appeared in its day. Photographed detail of an informational placard at the Jamestown historic site. Jamestown Rediscovery project, Preservation Virginia
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Above and below: Views of the partially reconstructed 1608 church, after excavations.
Although Jamestown’s claim to fame has rested primarily on its mantle as America’s first successful English colony, a darker side to its story tells how close the fledgling colony came to failure. That close call, as most people who have followed the Jamestown story know, was due most acutely to the horrendous period of starvation the colonists faced during the winter of 1609 – 1610. Brought on by a combination of concurrent factors, such as crumbling relations with the local Powhatan resulting in hostility and siege of James Fort, a drought, and dwindling food supplies and sources, it became known to history as the “starving time”. The written record has recounted this episode with some startling narrative:
Wee cannot for this our scarsitie blame our Comanders here, in respect that our sustenance was to come from England…soe lamentable was our scarsitie that we were constrayned to eat Doggs, Catts, rats, Snakes, Toadstooles, horse hides and wt nott, one man out of the mystery that he endured, killinge his wiefe powdered her app to eate her, for wch he was burned. Many besides fedd on the Corps of dead men…and one who had gotten unsatiable, out of custome to that foode could not be restrayned, untill such tyme as he was executed for it.(3)
The historical narrative is powerful and excruciatingly detailed, but generations of scholars and the public had to rely on the truthfulness and accuracy of the written word for these events — the physical evidence was absent. Until, that is, Kelso and his team began uncovering artifacts and bones that indicated something terrible was happening at Jamestown during this period. Excavations yielded burials, bones, artifacts and contexts that, after analysis, provided plausible evidence that the “starving time” did indeed occur and was likely as horrific and severe as documented. The one discovery that captured the imagination of scholars and the public alike, however, was the recovery of the remains of a 14-year old girl. Kelso relates the details of this story in the chapter, Jane. Reading almost like a detective mystery, Kelso does not scrimp on the thorough telling of how the researchers, through archaeological and forensic anthropological analysis, determined that the skeletal remains, consisting of more than a dozen specimens including a female human skull, jaw with teeth, and shin bone — all found with discarded “starving time” trash in a cellar/kitchen fill — had been butchered in an act of cannibalism. Doug Owsley, the Smithsonian Institution’s renowned forensic anthropologist and a consultant to the Jamestown excavations, was key to making the determination:
Owsley determined that the skull and leg bone had undergone sustained blows, chops, and cuts from several sharp, metal implements, reflecting a concerted effort to separate the brain and soft tissue from bone. Months of intensive scientific testing — including high-magnification technology, stable isotopic tests for oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen, and tests for lead — determined that the bones were the remains of a fourteen-year-old English girl of lower status, probably raised in southern England. Owsley concluded that the rigorous postmortem cuts to the skull and jaw, and the way the leg was severed, were clear evidence of cannibalism.(4)
Researchers have been unable to pinpoint the girl among the roster of settlers, and thus she remains unidentified. She is known simply by the name, for lack of any other, assigned to her: “Jane”.
Researchers have since created a believably lifelike and, by professional standards, accurate forensic sculptural reconstruction of Jane’s face and skull using a digital resin copy of her skull based on the skeletal finds. In addition to reading about the Jane story in Kelso’s book, it is well worth the visit to the Archaerium museum at the Jamestown site to view the reconstruction.
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The cannibalized remains of Jane, all constituting parts of the (1) skull; (2) shin bone; and (3) jaw. Photographed from a public display illustration in the Archaerium.
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Jane’s skull. Smithsonian image
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Forensic sculpture reconstruction of Jane’s face. Studio EIS
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Company Town
Archaeologists get very excited about finding middens (old refuse dumps) and wells. There is good reason for that. Like treasure chests for archaeologists, they often contain the greatest concentration of the bits and pieces of past civilizations. This has been particularly true for Jamestown. In the book’s final chapter Kelso covers a lot of ground, but his discussion of what Jamestown excavators have recovered from the historic James Fort wells dominates the narrative. And rightly so. The wells, particularly the two described in “Company Town”, have yielded some of Jamestown’s most intriguing artifacts. Although thousands of artifacts were recovered, one of the wells, associated with an excavated storehouse and its cellar, constructed inside the James Fort palisade triangle, gave up two objects worth noting here:A 5” by 8” slate tablet featuring inscriptions of words, symbols, numbers, and drawings of people, animals and plants; and fragments of 8 curiously marked Robert Cotton* clay tobacco pipes. The slate tablet discovery, which Kelso described as “not unlike finding the proverbial lost letters in an attic trunk,” had the distinction of being “both an archaeological find and a historical document.”(5) But accurately reading and interpreting the inscriptions on its face have been challenging, to say the least. Nonetheless, Kelso devotes fully 8 pages to describing the inscriptions, the efforts to understand them, and what they mean in terms of understanding what was happening at Jamestown. A close second in terms of the chapter content is the 7-page description of the pipe finds. These pipe fragments were interpreted to bear the names of 8 well-known English gentlemen: Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord De La Warre, Captain Samuel Argall, Sir Charles Howard, Henry Wriothesley, (the Earl of Southampton), Captain Francis Nelson, Sir Walter Cope, and Robert Cecil (Lord Salisbury) — all gentlemen associated with the Jamestown venture in different ways. “Why Cotton had to name them remains one of the most intriguing mysteries of the abandoned cellar/well finds,” Kelso writes. “Like the writing slate, however, the names on the pipes are examples of some of the surprisingly literal messages left to us by Jamestown’s past.”(6)
The second of the two wells, described by Strachey as intended to replace the old storehouse/cellar well, was discovered about 80 feet further north of the old well, but still within the James Fort palisade triangle. Its story is as much about its original construction as the artifacts found within. As the archaeologists excavated, they discovered that “at a depth of eight feet, six inches, the soil became moist, and remnants of timber lining appeared. Digging below that revealed more and more intact remnants of the lining until the timber was completely preserved to the bottom, fourteen feet below grade.”(7) The latter part of the excavation had to be conducted in water — a difficult situation — but in addition to the timber, the conditions produced by the water in the bottom portion of the well helped to preserve some other tantalizing finds, such as the remains of a child’s leather shoe and what is thought to have been Lord De La Warre’s ceremonial halberd, intact and remarkably preserved. An elegant loaded pistol, of a type that was likely considered state-of-the-art for its day (apparently finding its way into the well between 1610 and 1617), was also found, as well as a lead “Yames Towne” shipping tag.
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The slate tablet, as exhibited in the Archaerium
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A selecion of the pipe stems, as exhibited in the Archaerium
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Detail of a lead Jamestown shipping tag, dated to 1611, found in the timber-lined well. As exhibited in the Archaerium
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Holy Ground, Again
The book notwithstanding, it does not tell the end of the Jamestown excavations story. Indeed, the ink had barely dried with the book’s publication as excavations progressed full swing within the 1906 Memorial Church, today the most prominent architectural feature at the James Fort site. One of the excavation’s objectives, as with the first post-in-ground church dig to its northeast, is to uncover and hopefully identify who was buried in the church chancel — likely, as English tradition held in the early 17th century, burial remains of some of Jamestown’s most notable citizens.
Could the burials include Lord De La Warre, otherwise known as Thomas West, the leader who rescued the Jamestown colony from collapse with new supplies after the starving time, John Rolfe, the first successful tobacco planter and husband of Pocahontas, and George Yeardley, one of colonial Virginia’s early governors?
Intriguing new evidence unearthed within the chancel area of the church might possibly provide some clues. Archaeologists have already revealed evidence of burials, the presence of which were known from previous excavations conducted soon after the turn of the 20th century. Examination of recovered bones from the recent excavations by Smithsonian scientists in the lab are beginning to yield new information about who the bones represent, but nothing yet definitive in terms of identifying the buried. One set of bones, however, exhibited signs that the individual was robust, a man in his forties, and had tell-tale signs of having been a horseman. At least two out of the three findings thus far are consistent with what is known about Lord De La Warre.
It will take some time to ferret out the findings at the site and in the lab. For one thing, previous excavations and disturbances have vastly complicated the process.“We have not uncovered any more bones in place as of yet,” Kelso told Popular Archaeology. “We are still trying to sort out which graves came before which graves by the disturbed soil above the actual buried skeletal remains.”
One additional recent discovery is worth noting — a small metal box containing what has been detected by x-ray examination to be a piece of folded paper was unearthed in the northeast corner of the church foundation. A written note? “The paper is unreadable so far and probably never will be,” said Kelso. “Of course there is no doubt that the tin container was purposely buried [by the early excavators] under the north corner of the 1640s church during the 1901 digging.” The find exemplifies the many limitations and mysteries that may always remain about historic Jamestown, even through to the 20th century.
One thing should be emphasized — there is much more to the Memorial Church excavations than unearthing burials, (all of which, once recovered and researched, will be re-buried in accordance with the requirements of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources). The current structure, after all, lies above the foundation of the original 1617 structure, the church in which the first English governing representative assembly in America met. It was, among other things, the birthplace of the kind of government that eventually became the United States as we know it today and the center of the religious culture that helped to define a nation. Archaeologists are, at this writing, exploring the old foundations and recovering artifacts that will help to develop a deeper understanding of that historic site and its place in the American heritage.
Interested readers may obtain a copy of Kelso’s latest book, Jamestown, The Truth Revealed, by going to the University of Virginia Press website. The book is, in this writer’s opinion, a must-read for those who want an in-depth, engaging, and easily understood source for the story of how archaeology is both affirming and revealing important beginnings of the American experience.
Kelso, William M., Jamestown: The Truth Revealed, 2017 University of Virginia Press, pp. 182 – 184.
A True Declaration of the estate of the Colonie in Virginia, 1610, and The Tragical Relation of the Virginia Assembly, 1624, in Tracts and Other Papers, ed. Peter Force, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1836 – 46), 3:16.
Kelso, William M., Jamestown: The Truth Revealed, 2017 University of Virginia Press, p. 189.
Kelso, William M., Jamestown: The Truth Revealed, 2017 University of Virginia Press, pp. 210 – 211.
Kelso, William M., Jamestown: The Truth Revealed, 2017 University of Virginia Press, p. 226.
Kelso, William M., Jamestown: The Truth Revealed, 2017 University of Virginia Press, p. 228.
*Robert Cotton was a pipe-maker sent to Jamestown as part of a re-supply in 1608, and is responsible for the making of a number of pipes found at the Jamestown excavations.
Unmatched by the immovable stone of a massive cliff-like form, the wind bows to the unwavering integrity of the mountain, but cuts through the zigzagging maze of rickety, ancient wooden stairs, built centuries before on the mountain’s face, with the tautness of snapping fingers. Each crackle courses through pine boards in a ceaseless chorus of sound. There are places where they creak, places where they sing in low sonorous tones. There are places where the worms had eaten holes through the wood, creating small portholes through which one can see the forests of the valley floor far below………
“This is one of the most overlooked sites in China,” said Kuanghan Li. “Not many people have heard of it. Yet, it is also one of the most important. These places were built by imperial families for hundreds of years.”
It is not an understatement to say that Kuanghan Li, Global Heritage Fund’s Director of the China Heritage Program, is optimistic about the prospects for Maijishan, one of a handful of Buddhist caverns found in the country. From the train station, however, there’s little to see of one of China’s, and the world’s, most significant Buddhist complexes.
Ms. Li, Nada Hosking, Global Heritage Fund’s Director of Programs and Partnerships, and I had just arrived in Tianshui, a small, industrial city in China’s remote Gansui province. As we wound our way through its rain-choked streets, I tried to imagine the site as I had seen it from pictures. A tall, tawny-colored mountain, Maijishan appeared to me as a prominent bluff overlooking a primeval forest of oaks and pine. In the winter, the snow seasoned the worked stone with an austere grandeur, though its starkness seemed to herald the beauty of the spring yet to come.
Maijishan was more majestic in person than could be imagined. From our vantage point a giant emerged, appearing to rise at least 1,000 feet from the ground. The clay buddhas that adorned its side were massive structures some 100 feet tall and clearly visible from the visitor center half a mile away. The combination of forest, mountain, and sky, all wreathed in a midsummer mist, provided a sublime visual context.
After waiting for a short time in the offices of the Maijishan Art Research Institute, our partner in conserving Maijishan’s Buddhist heritage, we are assigned an English-speaking guide to take us up to the mountain. The wooden staircases that were once used by the monks have long since been removed, and in their place, an extensive series of concrete stairs and niches have been constructed to allow access to visitors.
Climbing these stairs, one encounters the first prominent feature —three large buddhas installed centuries ago into the mountain’s outer wall, those that appeared so small from afar on first reckoning. Their sheer size cannot be conveyed through words or pictures; craning my neck upward, I could only view them in their entirety before the strain became uncomfortable. After several flights of stairs, I was able to appreciate each segment in turn, their painted feet, their long-flowing robes, their serene faces radiating serenity, their benevolent eyes.
Like all of Maijishan’s sculptures, these are not made from stone but from a wooden skeleton overlaid with clay and then painted. Each successive generation of monks would maintain and embroider the mountain’s many art installations, adding their own unique veneer to more than 2,000 years of history. In their absence, the sculptures, frescoes, and other artworks have decayed. With these massive sculptures, where the facade has rotted away, it is possible to discern their superstructures.
To me at least, it’s clear why this site has enchanted so many over the millennia.
“It is as if one were to mount a carriage and pierce the mountain, carving out great niches” the sixth-century poet Yü Hsin wrote on an inscription upon a wall in one of Maijishan’s many grottoes. Though his original work is lost, his words remain to convey the awe, the power, and the majesty of this celestial confabulation: in his poems, Maijishan’s sacred caves were “carved in the darkness of the mountain peak” before earthquakes buried them, its walls “covered with inscriptions taken from holy scripture”1 until the paint faded away, the surrounding land bathed in brilliance by “an infinite medley of stars overhead” before the advent of industry polluted the skies.
The Sheaves of Wheat Mountain
You don’t need poetry to understand why Maijishan cuts an impressive figure, and there are many candidates to explain its magnificence. Extolled as the “Sheaves of Wheat Mountain” since the early fifth century, Maijishan’s golden-hued stone contrasts markedly with the greens and browns of the forest, the blue of the local rock, and the clear, pure waters of the springs. It appears like a crown amid dull trinkets. “Up and down is 80,000 feet” one record reads, a bit of ridiculousness that does not diminish the dizzying sheerness of the mountain’s heights and the fear they inspire in everyone but the birds, the grottoes’ only inhabitants now that the original stepladders and stairs have all rotted away.
Located only a few miles south of the main road between China and Central Asia, Maijishan became a center of cross-cultural pollination for hundreds of thousands of itinerants and a historical record written in the art of 12 separate dynasties. Indians, Mongols, Huns, Sogdians, Tibetans, Chinese, and others passed through its halls as they passed through the pages of history, each leaving an indelible piece of themselves behind.
The mountain’s 194 grottoes are a testament to their influence. They come in seven architectural variations, are home to over 7,000 statues, and are covered in more than 100 square meters of murals. Everything is dedicated to the pursuit of Buddhism, from the artworks depicting the birth of Siddhartha to bodhisattvas contorting themselves in meditation to the arrival of new devotees.While its physical attributes may have led to its initial prominence, it was this heritage, written and painted and sculpted upon the soft golden stone, that cemented it in the consciousness of globalized Buddhism as a cousin to Mount Sumeru, the Buddhist holy mountain, “the mythical axis of the universe.”2
The history of Maijishan, like the history of all things along these ancient trade routes, begins with a journey. In one account, the priest Hsüan-kao came to Maijishan and meditated there before forming his own ascetic system. He was later joined by the shaman T’an-Hung, who arrived at Maijishan sometime between 420 and 422. They “became good friends” and inaugurated the holy mountain’s first monastic community. After it grew to nearly 300 people, the two masters departed, Hsüan-kao for another master and T’an-Hung for Cochin, where his suicide through self-immolation is recorded in morbidly poetic terms: those who bore witness “saw Hung with a golden body, riding very swiftly westward on a golden deer.”3 — the picture of insanity tinged by religious fervor.
This semi-mythical beginning may or may not be true, but it is indisputable that Maijishan soon became an important religious site to the rulers of China. In the Sung Dynasty-era book Fang-yü sheng-lan, a historian explains, “Yao Hsing carved the mountains and made 1,000 cliffs and 10,000 images, turning the cliff into halls.” Thereupon [it became] Chin Chou’s place of scenic beauty.”4 A stele from 1222 declares that 10,000 people prayed at the site, empires gave the priests grants of land for farming, and seven kingdoms “continuously”5 repaired it. Later empires found it important to issue imperial decrees on its name, declaring it first “Ching-nien ssu” then “Ying-chien kan ssu” and then “Jui-ying ssu” before settling, finally, on Maijishan.
But, as a consequence of its strategic location alongside the Silk Road, not even royal patronage could ensure the safety and tranquility of the Buddhist community at Maijishan. Successive kingdoms fought over the ownership of the site from its foundation, with five different governments contesting control between 385 and 446 AD. It is not hard to imagine that Maijishan was far less tranquil than the average monastic community.
The earliest cave art dates from sometime in the fifth century, but scholars are divided as to whether they were made before or after the anti-Buddhist persecutions of 446-452.6 Visiting in the eighth century, the poet Tu Fu adapted the work of his predecessor Yü Hsin to write poignantly about the cruelty of time:
There are few monks left in these remote shrines,
And in the wilderness the narrow paths are high.
The musk-deer sleep among the stones and bamboo,
The cockatoos peck at the golden peaches.
Streams trickle down among the paths;
Across the overhanging cliff the cells are ranged,
Their tiered chambers reaching to the very peak;
And for 100 li one can make out the smallest thing.7
And yet, a stele from the Ming Dynasty in 1642 declares that “from Yao-Chin until now has been 1,300-some years and the incense fires have never stopped,”8 a powerful testament to its longevity through the turbulent years of war. It was not until the 18th century that the grottoes saw their end as a functioning monastic community.
As one of the four main large grottoes in China, the Maijishan Grottoes were announced as part of the priority group of heritage sites to be placed under emphasis by the State Department in 1961. On 22 June 2014, at the 38th World Heritage Site Nomination Conference held in Doha, Qatar, the Maijishan Cave-Temple Complex was inscribed onto the World Heritage List as part of the series of sites under “Silk Roads: The Routes Network of Chang’an-Tianshan Corridor.” Significant improvements have been made on the surrounding environment of the heritage sites following inscription. Nevertheless, appropriate preservation and management is crucial at Maijishan to ensure that the values of authenticity and integrity are retained.
“It has not undergone a lot of major intervention, at least in modern times,” Kuanghan Li says of the site. “It’s still pretty much intact and authentic. Now, with the whole [UNESCO] nomination and the development of the Chinese domestic tourism market, it’s getting more and more popular. There’s a lot of risk involved.”
For now, the main problem plaguing the site is tourism. During 2016’s May Day holiday, over 30,000 people visited the site in a single day, breaking all of its past records. Furthermore, Maijishan lacks much of the documentation and planning of other Chinese grottoes; not only does it not have a proper conservation history, it also does not have an archival record, making it difficult to understand the scope and extent of the threats to the site’s physical, built heritage.
According to Ms. Li, the following are priorities for conserving Maijishan’s spectacular tradition of Buddhist cave art:
There is an urgent need for visitor management plans to be put in place to prepare for the increase in tourists,9 so as to prevent any destruction that may threaten the integrity of the site.
Lack of appropriate expertise in restoring and maintaining the site may also result in the deterioration of valuable heritage material.
In addition, some of the caves suffer from natural erosion.10 Proper frameworks and expertise are required to ensure that sculptures and paintings are preserved.
While preserving the site, innovative solutions are needed to enhance access in a way that does not compromise visitor experience, or impose on surrounding communities.
To develop solutions to these issues, Global Heritage Fund is partnering with the Maijishan Grottoes Art Research Institute, which has served as a source of research and expertise on the Maijishan Cave Temple Complex. Since the establishment of the Gansu Province Cultural Department, the Maijishan Grottoes Art Research Institute has further refined its methodology and has been providing integrative services related to preservation, research, and tourist reception at Maijishan.
According to the current conditions and needs at the Maijishan Grottoes site and in line with the skills of our partners, the three main goals for Global Heritage Fund’s work are:
Develop an operational strategy for visitor management and establish relevant courses for members of staff and volunteers at the site, including access, interpretation, visitor capacity and technology-led education.
Conduct a systematic examination of Maijishan’s historic preservation, including restorative principles, techniques, and methods, and use it as a foundation for building up further scientific analysis and comprehensive proposals. This will help to create comprehensive frameworks for restoring and maintaining the site’s colored sculptures and mural paintings.
Create a community development program focused on the living communities within the park. Activities will include education, handicraft development and promotion, and sustainable community-based tourism development and training.
As to the future of conservation at Maijishan, Ms. Li has this to say: “We hope to develop a good management plan so there is something they can run and sustain in the long term. The Maijishan Grottoes Art Research Institute has had trouble attracting staff, because the site is so remote. This isn’t as bad as it sounds, however. They mostly hire from the villages around the area, who use more traditional techniques and methods of restoration. This is a good thing overall since it helps the community and maintains the integrity of the site. We’re hoping to add to this by giving more study to these traditional methods, and helping them build off this foundation to work toward a more systematic conservation method and plan – instead of just introducing modern conservation methods very abruptly and then overrun what they’ve done before.”
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As Founder and Editor of Popular Archaeology Magazine, Dan is a freelance writer and journalist specializing in archaeology. He studied anthropology and archaeology in undergraduate and graduate school and has been an active participant on archaeological excavations in the U.S. and abroad. He is the creator and administrator of Archaeological Digs, a popular weblog about archaeological excavation and field school opportunities.
Editor’s Note: The following article is an update on a previous article published in the Winter 2015/2016 issue of Popular Archaeology.
Not at Jamestown Island, and not at Plymouth Rock, did the first English settlers step onto American soil.
It was at Roanoke Island, lying between the present-day North Carolina mainland and the barrier islands of the Outer Banks, where the very beginnings of English colonization took place. And though far from the shores of the Elizabethan England of its time, the site owes its inception in large measure to the geopolitics, culture and economic enterprise of the broader European 16th century stage. Queen Elizabeth I and her England, with its upstart naval prowess, were challenging Spain’s undisputed position as the world’s preeminent naval power. News of Spain’s solid and strengthening foothold in the New World and the vast new resources—especially gold—that flowed from it, quickly caught the attention of the Queen’s chief playmakers—men like the favored and influential courtier Sir Walter Raleigh.
Keen to make England the most powerful monarchy of Europe, the Virgin Queen and Raleigh (pictured right) knew that enlarging the royal treasury and expanding the kingdom’s economy was key. Steeped in the politics of the times, they aimed to explore the New World and establish colonies to stake England’s claim and to also act as a springboard for launching raids on the Spanish West Indies and Spain’s treasure fleets. The Queen granted Raleigh a royal charter, authorizing him to explore, colonize, and control any “remote, heathen and barbarous lands, countries, and territories, not actually possessed of any Christian Prince, or inhabited by Christian People,” in return for one-fifth of all the gold and silver that might be mined there.*
With that, Raleigh financed, solicited investors, and organized the first English expeditions. It was first and foremost an economic venture, as well as a thrust in scientific research. The initial two expeditions, the first a reconnaissance mission headed by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, and the second a military colony commanded by Sir Richard Grenville, which were launched in 1584 and 1585 respectively, were fruitful, bringing back new knowledge of the resources and inhabitants of the newly found land. Discovered and documented in detail through notes, watercolors and drawings by expedition artist, cartographer and explorer John White and expedition scientist Thomas Harriot, the earliest expeditions produced for the first time a picture of “the new found land of Virginia,” and of “the commodities and of the nature and manners of the natural inhabitants” for Raleigh and the expedition’s gentlemen British investors—and perhaps more importantly, from the Crown’s perspective, rumors of gold and a passage to the South Sea.* Though the rumors and reports on the latter ultimately proved fanciful (the sassafras tree, it turned out, became the biggest takeaway in terms of commodities), it was enough in the beginning to incentivize and outfit a civilian expedition to permanently colonize the new territory with a start-up group of 118 men, women, and children.
This time, veteran explorer John White was commissioned as the expedition’s leader and colony governor. In addition to the enormous responsibility for the welfare and protection of friends and families under his command, his stake in the mission was also deeply personal—along with him came his daughter Ellinor and son-in-law Ananias Dare. It was an unprecedented experiment in first-seed English civilian colonization on North American soil.
But, as it turned out, the effort was short-lived. After six weeks, White left the colony to return to England for much-needed supplies and reinforcements, leaving behind the bulk of the group, including his daughter Ellinor, son-in-law Ananias, and new granddaughter Virginia, the first English person to be born on American soil, to thrive as best they could until his return.
A return that wouldn’t occur for another three years.
The Queen needed every ship she could muster to defend England against the impending Spanish threat, and that, along with other complicating circumstances, locked White into a furiously frustrating wait until resources could finally be made available for the return trip.
Finally, in the year 1590, White stepped back onto Roanoke Island and into the site of the settlement on August 18, serendipitously coinciding with the third birthday of his granddaughter, Virginia. But there was no birthday celebration, for as White and his party could see, not a single settler remained.
“We passed toward the place where they were left in sundry houses,” White wrote in his account, “but we found the houses taken down, and the place very strongly enclosed with a high palisado of great trees, with cortynes and flankers very fort-like, and one of the chief trees or posts at the right side of the entrance had the bark taken off, and 5 feet from the ground in fair capital letters was [en]graven CROATOAN without any cross or sign of distress…..”**
White and the settlers had agreed that a cross symbol would be engraved if the settlers had encountered trouble or distress before, or as the cause for leaving, should they have to abandon the settlement. Clearly from the lack of such signage, all seemed to be well. Engraved into the tree post, ‘CROATOAN’ was the name of an Indian group that inhabited present-day Hatteras Island to their south. Had the colonists gone to live with the Indians there?
White and his party then sailed south toward Hatteras. But a violent storm drove his ship out to sea. The attempt was abandoned and he returned to England, never to return again.
One can only imagine White’s heartbreak and the enduring haunt that likely plagued the rest of his days. His last years are lost to history, but in a letter he wrote to Richard Hakluyt, the English author who wrote about the early English experience in America, he summed up his final trip with the words “as luckless to many, as sinister to myself”.
Needless to say, the fate and whereabouts of the “lost colony”, as it came to be called in the popular literature, has been the subject of historical and archaeological investigation for many decades. But the story and mysteries of the first English settlement go well beyond the “lost colony”, and archaeologists and historians have been busy, off and on and as resources have allowed, conducting research to find the answers.
The search began on the north end of Roanoke Island, where some surface features and finds gave clues to the presence of the elusive first colony remains.
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Section of the 1585 map of the east coast of North America from the Chesapeake Bay to Cape Lookout by John White. The pink island, center right, is Roanoke. Courtesy British Museum
Detail focusing on Roanoke Island in “The Carte of All the Coast of Virginia,” engraving by Theodor de Bry based on John White’s map of the coast of Virginia and North Carolina circa 1585-1586. De Bry’s engraving was published in Thomas Hariot’s “A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia,” published in 1588 and in Vol. 1 of Theodore de Bry’s Great Voyages, printed in French, English and German. This was the first printed map with a high degree of detail and accuracy for any part of the United States. It was the first separate map of Virginia. It was based on a manuscript map by John White from 1585, a copy of which is in the British Museum, revised for additional names and coastal detail gained from Roanoke Colony travels in 1587 and 1588. Quinn notes that White’s original drawing is accepted as the major contemporary authority on the configuration of the coastline in the late sixteenth century. The map was the same in all four editions of Harriot’s work. John White, one of the company sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to establish an English colony on Roanoke Island in 1585, went at least twice to the Carolina coast in the 1580s. There he produced a series of drawings of the everyday life of the Native American populations. White also compiled this map of the North Carolina coast from Cape Lookout to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, based on the British explorations of 1585-86, which de Bry then engraved and published in 1590. Image and text from Wikimedia Commons Courtesy British Museum
One example among a number of illustrations made by John White depicting the lives of the Native American villagers the colonists encountered. Village of the Secotan in North Carolina. Watercolour painted by John White, 1585. Courtesy British Museum
Edward “Clay” Swindell, who is the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archaeologist for the U.S. Navy, leads me down narrow paths in a thicket of woods within what is today the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site area. Swindell has been a key member of a team that has recently uncovered artifacts that could give new clues about the final whereabouts of at least some of the members of the lost colony. But here, in these woods on the Island of Roanoke, North Carolina, he guides me to four places where scientists over the decades have unearthed some tantalizing traces of this first English presence in America.
One such place is the famous earthwork “fort”, the most prominent and visible feature on the historical landscape surrounding the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site visitor center. It was in this immediate area where the first full professional excavations on the island began under the direction of National Park Service archaeologist Jean “Pinky” Harrington in 1947 and 1948. What he excavated then, however, was a faint physical reminder of what once stood here. Visitors today see the reconstructed earthwork, the way researchers and archaeologists suggest the “fort” may have appeared in its day. For years, historians and archaeologists have suggested that the simple earthwork sconce, or ‘fort’, served as the major defensive function for the early colonists, featuring perhaps the placement of cannon directed to the nearby shoreline to protect the main colony from potential Spanish attack or advances. But Swindell disagrees with that scenario.
“It’s just too far from the shoreline for that to work,” he says. “It wouldn’t make sense.”
The shoreline has changed over time since the late 16th century. But even given the original shoreline, the distance would have been too great for the fort placement to make sense. Swindell suggests that the earthwork may have been constructed as a quickly-raised earthen sconce to defend or protect an element of the early colony from nearby Indians, known to be living in an established village just north of the location—or that it may have served some purpose other than defense of the colony from threats from the sea. Harrington and his team uncovered musket balls, sherds of small crucibles, olive jars, German jettons, and copper nuggets from the earthwork site. Further excavations just west of the earthwork in 1982 and 1983 by the Southeast Archaeological Center of the National Park Service also revealed similar Elizabethan period artifacts, including sherds of crucibles, more Normandy flasks, and tin-glazed ointment pots. And most recently, in 2010, ground-truthing excavations connected to a 2008-2009 Radar Tomography survey uncovered a spread of charcoal. More telling was Harrington’s excavation in 1965, including later excavations by the late Ivor Noël Hume of the Colonial Willamsburg Foundation, which revealed another adjacent site, defined by a nine-foot-square line of postmolds (dark soil where wooden posts in the ground had long rotted away) and a one-foot-deep sunken floor that featured three pits. One of the pits contained bricks, some of which were modified, 16 sherds of a Normandy flask, and Indian pottery. The consensus among archaeologists now suggests that this site was Thomas Harriot’s “workshop” or “science center”, a place where he, as the expedition ‘scientist’, conducted work to extract minerals and other resources – a metallurgical workshop of sorts. The charcoal feature at the earthwork uncovered in the 2010 excavations has also since been identified as fuel made by Harriot and his workmen, likely during the 1585 expedition. The archaeology has shown that this workshop site may actually have preceded the earthwork. So it is not an altogether unsupportable suggestion that the earthwork feature might have been designed to protect the workshop due to worsening relations with the neighboring Indians.
Walking further north, Swindell leads me to a place where, in 2008, 2009, and 2010, archaeologists uncovered more artifacts. As we swat mosquitoes from our faces, he points and delineates the area where the excavations took place. One would hardly know any excavation had ever taken place here. Tucked deep in the woods along a nature trail, it appeared virtually untouched by the human hand. But in 2008 archaeologists had to dig 3 feet down through sand in this place before they could reach any signs of past cultural activity. The dune build-up over time had covered over the original late 16th century surface. Today the place is known as the ‘Harriot Woods’ site, where excavators uncovered two cache pits containing European artifacts, including a necklace made of diamond-shaped copper plates (a likely trade item of high value to the local Algonquian Indians of the time), copper aglets typically used to lace up Elizabethan clothing, a fragment of lace, and glass Venetian beads (also a valued trade item among the local Indians). Further excavation at the site revealed a slot trench feature that was identified as evidence of a palisade fence that ran northward toward the shoreline. Radiocarbon dating of organic material found at the site indicated a date range of 1540 – 1640.
Was this, along with the earthwork and the ‘science center’ site, part of the remains of the main settlement and fort documented in the historical accounts?
Swindell has his doubts.
“None of the artifacts or features here are evidence of domestic activity,” says Swindell. “Harrington’s work, Hume’s work, and our (more recent) work didn’t show any kind of habitation here (that would be characteristic of a domestic settlement, such as at Jamestown).”
And even the earthwork, interpreted as a defensive feature, would not be substantial enough to be considered a fort of the type that the colony would need for overall defense. Now, archaeologists question the earlier suppositions that the main settlement site has been found. Nonetheless, the earthwork site and the other sites nearby clearly indicate a 16th century European presence on the island.
Much more work needs to be done before solid conclusions can be drawn, says Swindell. That work will be challenging, and part of that challenge has to do with the changing environment and the dunes. Dune formation in this area has covered the surface to the point where one must typically excavate at least several feet before reaching any cultural layers that could be identified with the colonial period. Significant shoreline erosion has been another culprit. Swindell walked me eastward along a narrow trail through the woods to a point on the shoreline. We emerged at the edge of a high sand dune bluff overlooking the shoreline. It was sculpted by the unrelenting elements of water and wind over time. Called “Barrel Beach”, this is where archaeologists recovered the lower part of a wooden barrel and a hollowed-out log in shallow water along the shore in 1982. Radiocarbon-dated to the late 16th century, they are thought by some archaeologists to be parts of a well facility established by the colonists for access to fresh water. Here also archaeologists found Iberian olive jar sherds and a few 16th century objects, including an axe. But the point is that none of these objects would have been found at the time if it hadn’t been for the extensive, ongoing erosion of the deep dune layers along shoreline. The erosion, in a sense, did the digging for them. Yet even this has its drawbacks. “It’s a race against time,” says Swindell. “In 2006 test units were excavated at this spot above the shoreline. Now that surface is gone. We’ve probably lost about 50 feet of shoreline due to erosion over the past decade. There was potentially an Elizabethan component here. Underwater testing has been done, but it hasn’t turned up much.” Swindell added that much of the dune accumulation, shifting and erosion we see today occurred since the early 19th century after logging removed the foliage critical for supporting and protecting the land surface from sand encroachment and erosion. It has vastly complicated efforts to investigate what lies beneath. “In some places the sand could be as much as 10 to 12 feet above the original 16th century land surface,” he says.
So, with the emerging doubts about the earthwork as a viable candidate for ‘Fort Raleigh’ and no evidence of artifacts or structures in the area that would signal domestic habitation, I asked Swindell where he thought the main settlement could possibly be.
We hopped into his SUV and proceeded south from the archaeological sites along highway 64 toward Manteo, the modern town on Roanoke. “Even Pinky (long before the popular perception that the main settlement was located around or near the earthwork) suspected that the main settlement and fort was down south in the vicinity of Shallowbag Bay,” said Swindell. Manteo abuts Shallowbag Bay, home to the town’s main marina and an ideal waterfront for docking boats of a variety of capacities. The trip took only 5 minutes, and we were soon walking up a peer that jutted into the bay. We stopped at the end of the pier, at the edge of the water.
Looking at it, and comparing it to the shore area further north near the archaeological sites, it was easy to see how this would have been a much more desirable place to establish a fort and settlement.
“This is a nice, deep area for portage and docking,” he says. “The entrance to the Outer Banks is more easily accessible. You have this nice sheltered bay that better accommodates the docking of ships. So you can imagine that this would be a better place to protect your ships and to actually bring supplies in, whereas toward the north (where the current archaeological sites are) there is really no (workable) place to keep your boats and offload supplies.”
“This isn’t a new revelation or proposal,” he continues, “but the traditional ‘Fort Raleigh’ location identified with the earthwork further north at the Park acted like a ‘red herring’, diverting attention from further exploration or consideration of this location.”
He points to another side of the bay, a concentration of condos along the shoreline. “That is one of the areas we are interested in—back in the 30’s, there was a young man who found an English sixpence in that area. Other (unprovenanced) small finds have cropped up in the area. None of them have been pursued archaeologically. We are hoping to pursue some of these leads, among other things.”
But none of this is to say that investigations at the traditional ‘Fort Raleigh’ site on the north of the island are over.
“People think there is nothing left to find here,” says archaeologist Eric Deetz, a member of the First Colony Foundation team and lecturer at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. “I don’t buy that.”
Deetz conducted a limited excavation at the workshop/science center site in 2017, re-investigating what has already been done to clarify and hopefully find answers to some outstanding questions—like uncovering and identifying postholes for missed clues to any structures. He suggests that during Harrington’s time, the excavators were not as adept at recognizing the subtle soil features that give clues to the presence of past structures. Deetz applies his years of experience from the Jamestown excavations, where they uncovered the many subtle posthole traces of the (what was thought to be long lost) palisade trenches defining James Fort, as well as its other associated structures.
“I have a dream,” he says. “And I think it’s going to come to pass.”
Like the renewed workshop/science center excavation, Deetz hopes to re-excavate many of Harrington’s old, now re-filled trenches. He shows me a site plan made of Harrington’s old trenches. He argues that the level and intensity, and thus the thoroughness, of the investigations and excavations conducted at the present-day Fort Raleigh National Historic Park area never approached the level and intensity given to the Jamestown site further north in Virginia. To illustrate this further he describes an excavation conducted in 2009-2010 that uncovered traces of a previously undetected slot trench not far from where excavators found the copper necklace and trade beads (see above). “It could be a 16th century palisade,” he speculates, “or it could be some place where they built a fence for a pigsty in 1760.” No artifacts were found that could help date the feature. However, archaeologists took soil samples from the site and sent them for OSL (Optimally Stimulated Luminescence) testing. “So if we get results indicating it could be 16th century,” he exclaims with a hopeful gleam in his eye, “then we’re off to the races.”
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The reconstructed earthwork, showing excavations in progress at the site. Courtesy First Colony Foundation
Sample of organic cordage found in association with the copper necklace. It is thought to have been part of a container or bag in which the necklace was placed. Courtesy First Colony Foundation
Artifacts recovered from the 2017 excavated unit at the Harriot workshop/science center site. They were found within the back-fill from the old Harrington excavations. At least two of the fragments are 16th century ceramic ware.
Clues to the Lost Colony and a New Working Hypothesis
The first efforts to solve the mystery of the ‘lost colony” of 1587 actually came centuries ago, with the English settlers of Jamestown, Virginia. Captain John Smith, leader of the Jamestown Colony from 1608 to 1609, was, according to chronicler Samuel Purchas, told by Chief Powhatan that he had slaughtered the Lost Colonists. William Strachey, Secretary of the Jamestown colony in 1610-11, also wrote that, according to Powhatan, he had killed the colonists while they were living with friendly Indians because of prophecies by his priests, the slaughter having taken place in 1607. With rumors of possible survivors, Jamestown colonists conducted search expeditions, but no trace of them had ever been found. But further research by Brandon Fullam suggested that Strachey had actually described two slaughters and that members of the lost colony were not among the victims, and historian Lee Miller has postulated that some of the lost colony members lived among the Chowanoke, who were attacked by another tribe, resulting also in the deaths of the colonists. The so-called “Zuniga Map” (named after Spanish amabassodor to England Pedro de Zúñiga, who had obtained a copy and passed it on to King Philip III of Spain), which was drafted in 1607 by Jamestown settler Francis Nelson, seems to support this. On that map one can read that “four men clothed that came from roonock” were living at an Iroquois site on the Neuse. There were other reported sightings. According to Strachey’s reporting in 1612, four English men, two boys and one girl were sighted at an Eno Indian settlement. He stated that they were treated as captives and compelled to work copper, and that some of them escaped and fled up the Chaonoke river, today known as Chowan River in Bertie County, North Carolina.
These accounts and theories are only a few among a number that have been advanced over the years by historians and scholars about the fate of the lost colonists. But recent archaeological investigatons may be shedding new light on this 400+-year-old mystery…………
Site X
Most archaeologists who have been involved in the ongoing research related to the first English colonial ventures on Roanoke would say that it was unlikely that everything happened in one place. As Swindell maintains, the Raleigh expedition operations and colonial attempts likely extended beyond the single settlement locale most often depicted in the popular perception. Based on the historical accounts alone, we know that Raleigh and the explorer-colonists he sent were keenly interested in exploring into the interior of the land, with the prospect of claiming and settling new territory and tapping into new resources for the English Crown. The Virginea Pars map, originally drawn by John White, shows a strong interest in what is today the western Albemarle Sound. Indeed, according to White, there were plans to “remove 50 miles into the Main” from Roanoke Island. Combined with the evidence of White’s map, that would place their intentions into the lands bordering the western Albemarle Sound.
Could this be where at least some of the members of the ‘lost colony’ ended up?
Archaeologists of the First Colony Foundation think this is an explanation that cannot be dismissed. Established in 2004, the First Colony Foundation has been dedicated primarily to conducting archaeological and historical research on American beginnings related to the Elizabethan expeditions and colonies of the 1580’s.
“Work and resources shifted away from Roanoke to the Salmon Creek area (adjacent to the western Albemarle Sound) after about 2009,” said Swindell. “With pending construction of new developments in the area, the James River Institute (a cultural resources management firm) was enlisted to survey the area. One of the sites surveyed yielded early ceramics that hinted at a European presence that appeared to predate the later colonial settlements of the area.”
The Salmon Creek site (now popularly referred to as “Site X”) was actually first identified in 2007 through an archaeological shovel test survey and later through test pits. During the surveys, archaeologists recovered a mix of Native American and early English ceramic artifacts, artifacts indicating evidence of 17th and 18th century English activity or settlement. But some of the ceramic fragments, based on later expert examination, suggested late 16th century, the time of the Raleigh expeditions. Subsequently, the First Colony Foundation began excavations at the site in 2012—and this is where the story really took off. It began when Brent Lane, professor of Heritage Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, requested the British Museum to examine White’s 1585 Virginea Pars map. The document was being used by the Foundation to inform their research and surveys in the area. “We noticed the patches on the White map and asked the British Museum to place the map (the original being located at the Museum) on a light table,” said Swindell. “This revealed a symbol or shape beneath that looked much like a fort. We had already done work in that area, so we went back to look at it again, what had been found (the early ceramics), and renewed excavations there.”
What they discovered, and the resulting interpretation of the finds, has since become a major media splash that has captured the attention of the general public and scholars alike. Beginning in 2012 and ending in 2017, with each season lasting from 7 to 10 days, archaeologists dug a total of 53 two-meter-square units over 2,250 square feet, recovering a variety of artifacts and features providing evidence mostly of a Native American, but also, to a much smaller degree, a possible European presence. Most noteworthy were objects, for these purposes, consisting of 40 sherds representing perhaps 6 or 7 vessels of 16th century Surrey-Hampshire Border ware; 8 sherds representing a North Devon plain baluster jar—both types of ceramic ware commonly used during the 16th and 17th centuries, the baluster jar having been typically used as a provisioning jar on sea voyages—two tenter hooks, of a type similar to that used at the early Jamestown settlement and possibly used to stretch canvas (sail cloth) to create temporary shelters or to stretch and dry animal skins; an aglet of the type that would have secured Elizabethan clothing, among other artifacts. The finds were generally concentrated in two of the 53-unit total excavation area. It is worth noting that the artifacts are also significant in that the earliest recorded presence of English settlement in the western Albemarle Sound area did not occur before about 1655.
So what do these finds mean? Is this evidence of the lost colony?
Perhaps. But the accounts of the Raleigh expeditions also record initial exploratory forays westward into the mainland under the leadership of Philip Amadas and Ralph Lane, leaders of the first expedition in 1585. Could the artifacts represent traces of those ventures?
The Foundation report dismisses this explanation. “The excavation of domestic table wares from several different diagnostic vessels along with other less diagnostic, but possibly contemporaneous artifacts, strongly suggests that the above mentioned European presence was of a longer duration and the activities different from those recorded for the pre-1587 English exploration of the lower Chowan River basin [as documented in the historical record].”***
But were the artifacts simply transported there by the Native Americans through trade? Possibly—Site X is primarily a Native American settlement site, and the Native American inhabitants of the time had a known, active trade network. The early colonists exchanged goods with them as needs dictated. European objects, unique and novel to the native inhabitants, were highly valued, especially items made of copper and glass Venetian beads. But, reports the Foundation team, “missing at Site X are the most common trade goods, like beads…….fragments of European pottery do occur in a few VA/NC Indian site assemblages that probably date as early as the 1660s, but they are not common, and it seems that ceramics were not routinely carried into Indian country by traders until the mid-1700s.”*** The report further notes that there are no records that indicate the presence of European traders in the area prior to 1655. And even the Native American artifacts provide some clues, suggest the report authors — “preliminary analysis of the Colington series [a type of Native American pottery] ceramics from Site X suggests that this phase of Carolina Native American occupation occurred before the 17th century. Years of regional research informs us that this shell-tempered ware is representative of the Carolina Algonkians, or the group of Native American Indians occupying the region at the time of Elizabethan exploration in the 16th century.”***
Nonetheless,”we do not have the smoking gun,” said archaeologist Nicholas Luccketti, director of the Site X excavations. “We have no features of European-built structures. We have not found a fort. Nor do we claim to have found the main relocation site or even the main group of the 1587 Roanoke colonists” at this site. “Quite the contrary, we believe that a small number of Roanoke colonists resided for a few years at Site X—a contention based on circumstancial evidence.”****
The First Colony Foundation team thus suggests that any habitation by Roanoke colonists at the site may have only consisted of a small surviving part of the original 1587 group, similar in vain to the accounts acquired by some Jamestown colonists from the Native Americans about the presence of other ‘white people’ in other places in the region, as later recorded on the Zuniga map of 1608. (The reported locations were placed on a map of the region, the original having been lost. But a Spanish spy sent a copy, the so-called Zuniga Map, to the Spanish court. The map indicated two locations along tributaries to the North Carolina Sounds where survivors of the 1587 colony may have resided – see above Zuniga Map copy).
Assuming that what the Foundation archaeologists are suggesting is true, what about the rest of the colonists? And what about the letters White observed carved into a tree or post at the abandoned 1587 colony site, which seemed to indicate that the colonists had moved to live with or near the Croatoans, who inhabited the present-day Outer Banks island of Hatteras at the time?
A site on Hatteras Island may possibly provide some clues………….
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Above and below: A patch applied to a map painted by explorer John White between 1585-1586,when enhanced with ultraviolet light, showed a faint image that could be a clue to understanding what happened to the Roanoke settlement that disappeared after White sailed back to England (the ‘lost colony’). The image featured characteristics typical of a 16th century English fort. Courtesy British Museum
This exhibit, open in October 2017 for the visiting public at the Dare County Arts Council museum in Manteo on Roanoke Island, shows examples of the artifacts uncovered at Site X. (1) Sherds of a North Devon baluster jar shown along with a complete reproduction — these jars were typically used in the 16th century for storing foods such as beans, fish and butter; (2) Yellow-glazed Surrey Hampshire Border ware complete reproduction. A typical 16th century ceramic ware, sherds of this were excavated at Site X; (3) Yellow-glazed Surrey Hampshire Border ware porringer, complete reproduction — typically used in the 16th century for individual servings of porridge, soups and stews. Sherds of this were excavated at Site X; (4) Early style lace tip aglet, an example of which was found at Site X. They were used, like buttons, to secure Elizabethan period clothing; (5) Snaphaunce priming pan, found at Site X. It is an element of a 16th century gunlock; (6) Iron tenterhook, found at Site X. Tenterhooks were hammered into wood in rows and used to stretch cloth or skins.
Headed by Mark Horton of Britain’s Bristol University, a separate team of archaeologists consisting in large measure of members of the Croatoan Archaeological Society are uncovering signs of a possible 16th century English presence at the site of a Native American settlement on Hatteras Island (Croatoan in the 16th century) called Cape Creek. Excavations there during the spring of 2015 have turned up some tantalizing artifacts, including a small fragment of slate that may have been used as a writing tablet (showing a small letter “M” in one corner and found near a lead pencil) similar to that found at the 1607 James Fort excavations on Jamestown Island, Virginia; a part of the hilt of an English iron rapier (a sword of the type used in England during the 16th century); an iron bar; and a large copper ingot. The finds appear to be consistent with the long-held assumption that the 1587 colonists did indeed move and settle with the Native American inhabitants on present–day Hatteras, as implied by the ‘Croatoan’ signage at the Roanoke site in the historic record.
Moreover, it isn’t the first time that possible 16th century English artifacts have been uncovered at the location. In 1998, investigations of the site by archaeologists under a East Carolina University project yielded what was thought to be a gold signet ring dated to the 16th century. Engraved with the image of a lion or horse, it is suggested that it likely originally belonged to an English gentleman, as such items would have been more typically worn by English noblemen. It was this find, among other things, that inspired the renewed excavations at the site. But the ring was well-worn, and found mixed in with other artifacts dated to the 17th and 18th centuries, which suggests the possibility that it was actually an item of trade that eventually found its way to the Native American settlement site much later. “We interpreted the site as a 17th century Croatan Indian workshop complete with hearths for working and lots of metal working related items,” said Swindell. Swindell, who participated in the 1998 excavations when the signet ring was found, expresses an additional air of caution. “We need to be very careful about how we interpret our finds at these sites,” he emphasizes. “It’s easy to catch the ‘fever’ of looking for the ‘lost colony’, and this can color our conclusions. We’re looking at sites that bear a paltry few artifacts (related to European presence), and so it’s easy to cave into the temptation of saying, ‘this is it’ about the lost Roanoke settlement or the lost colony.” Thus Swindell, like his other colleagues, is the first to say that there is a lot more work to do before anyone can draw conclusions with any reasonable degree of certainty.
Not touched upon here are the various hypotheses advanced to explain why the 1587 group of colonists abandoned their established settlement after White’s departure. Were hostilities between the colonists and the local Native American inhabitants to blame? Were there emerging Spanish threats in the area? Did the colonists simply decide to carry out plans to go “into the Maine” and establish themselves further inland to the west?
Swindell suggests another possibility: Dwindling food resources. The area was affected by significant drought conditions during the time of the first colonization attempts. Dendrochronology research bears this out. This would have surely effected any crop production, including the surrounding ecosystem for supporting game for hunting. The local Native American population may well have been helpful in sharing their production with the upstart colony, especially in exchange for sought-after copper and beads. But “even the local Native Americans were struggling” with the drought, said Swindell, who is a specialist in the Native American prehistory of the region. So did everyone, including the local Native American villagers, pack up and leave for ‘greener pastures’? No tangible messages of ‘distress’ due to Indian hostilities that White and the 1587 colonists had agreed would be left at the settlement site were in evidence when White returned from England, as he himself noted in his record. So the prospect of mutual starvation, not mutual hostility, is within the realm of explanatory possibilities.
Going Forward
Ultimately, could one truly say that the first colonization effort failed? The obvious fact is that the Roanoke colony, or City of Raleigh, as the Crown, Raleigh and his investors were hoping to see flourish as their first New World center, never endured and developed as initially planned. But the knowledge and experience gained from the first exploratory and colonization effort was everlasting and had a profound impact on what was to follow under the Virginia Company at Jamestown Island in Virginia. The record of White and the information other members of the first expeditions brought back with them to England did much to inform the future ventures and colonization efforts, contributing significantly to the success of realizing a permanent foothold on the North American continent.
For now, work has terminated at Site X, with an eye toward exploring and surveying other areas surrounding the site for evidence of English occupation, perhaps even the main 1587 group.
But as mentioned before, there is much more to the first colony story than the case of the missing 1587 colonists.
“We hope to return to Roanoke,” said Swindell. And Deetz, as previously noted, has already begun re-investigating the previously excavated units at the Fort Raleigh National Historic Park site.
They face two challenges to those plans—time and resources. The erosion at Roanoke continues, threatening to destroy and drown any possible remaining vestiges of the colony. Will there be the will and enough resources in time to uncover and save what might be left at Roanoke?
Swindell shakes his head. “Funding is always a problem.”
Moreover, until the “fever” that now drives the search for the lost colony catches in equal measure for the search for the elusive main settlement remains on Roanoke, any answers still lying buried on Roanoke may never see the light of day.
Readers interested in learning more about Raleigh’s Roanoke expeditions, the archaeology, and the work of the First Colony Foundation, may go to the website at www.firstcolonyfoundation.org and www.firstcolonyfoundation.org/give to donate critical funds needed to support further work. Readers interested in visiting the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site may also learn more at http://www.nps.gov/fora/index.htm.
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Yosef Garfinkel is Yigael Yadin Chair in Archaeology of Eretz Yisrael and Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of numerous books, articles and papers and is a holder of the Polonsky Book Prize. He is currently excavating at Tel Lachish in Israel.
Khirbet Qeiyafa, in Israel, is located on the summit of a hill that borders the Elah Valley southwest of Jerusalem. This would have been a key strategic location in the biblical Kingdom of Judah, on the main road from Philistia and the coastal plain to Jerusalem and Hebron in the hill country. Even prior to excavation, visitors to Khirbet Qeiyafa could discern a massive city wall, 2–3 m in height, encompassing the summit of the hill. This city wall demarcates an area of 2.3 hectares with a total length of ca. 700 m. Due to the local topography, only the external face of the wall is exposed, the inner part buried under archaeological remains. The base of the wall is composed of cyclopean stones, some weighing 4–5 tons, while its upper part is built with medium-sized stones. Two city gates were already located prior to their excavation, one in the south and one in the west (Figs. 1–3).
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