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Jerusalem Dig Calls for Support

Posted on May 15, 2016 by No Author -

Just below the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, a team of archaeologists, scholars and students will soon be busy at work excavating one of Jerusalem’s most important archaeological sites — one that features the 2,000-year-old remains of a wealthy residential area that saw its heyday during the time of Herod and Jesus.

Directing the operation is Shimon Gibson, a British-born Israeli archaeologist and adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is also a Senior Associate Fellow at the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research. He, along with co-director James Tabor, a well-known scholar of Second Temple period Judaism and early Christianity and Professor with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, is excavating an area adjacent to and below the southern Old City wall of Jerusalem. Referred to as the Mount Zion excavation because of its location in the sacred elevated area at the center of ancient Jerusalem near the historical Temple Mount, the work here is important because it is unearthing evidence of people who played out history in this place for thousands of years. It is set near a number of significant places in the history of this ancient city, such as the Praetorium where Jesus was tried before Pontius Pilate; the presumed location of the Last Supper of Jesus; the House of Caiaphas and those of other priestly families who lived during the time of Jesus; the large Nea Ekklesia of the Theotokos Church that Emperor Justinian commissioned in the 6th century and that was situated just above the site; and fortifications of the Crusaders and the Ayyubids.

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Aerial overview of the Mount Zion dig site. Courtesy Mount Zion Archaeological Project

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The team has completed its 2015 season of excavations, building on the large collection of finds and records they have already amassed from previous seasons—findings that are helping them to gradually piece together what life was like for the people who lived here centuries before in the shadow of Jerusalem’s ancient walls.

“We’re uncovering ancient Jerusalem in all of its periods,” says Tabor in a news documentary about the dig. “This is actually the center of the city” he says about the location of the dig. That’s because the historic 15th-16th century Old City wall that overlooks the site did not exist for most of the time periods represented by the finds his team are uncovering. “So you have to imagine markets and houses and streets, and those are not visible now. It’s like a city arising out of the soil.”*

Says Gibson: “The early remains that we thought were badly preserved turned out to be extremely well preserved, with houses, palatial houses dating back 2,000 years, with the ceilings of the lower basement levels intact, vaulted ceilings, and doorways leading into different chambers.”*

Some of the finds made in previous seasons include a plastered cistern, a stepped and plastered ritual bathing pool (‘mikveh’) with a well preserved barrel-vaulted ceiling, a chamber containing three bread ovens (‘tabuns’), Early Roman pottery, lamps, stone vessels, murex shells, coins, Roman Tenth Legion stamped roof tiles, and what appeared to be a relatively rare and well-preserved, plastered bathtub. Gibson and Tabor suggest that what they are finding could be a wealthy neighborhood and, given the site’s proximity to the location of the Herodian-built Second Temple known from the time of Jesus, possibly a community that included priests who served at the Temple.

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Above, a remarkably well preserved ‘bathtub’ uncovered within the excavated home of a wealthy resident of ancient Jerusalem. Photo by Lori Woodall

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Gibson hopes that, beyond the scientific and scholarly gain that will be generated by the excavations and research, the work here will set the stage for an archaeological park open to the public. “With time,” he adds, “when we have completed the excavation work, we will be getting down to preserving the archaeological remains and then opening it up as a park so that one day these people that are now passing by in bewilderment looking at our tents and seeing all this fuss being made in these excavation trenches will be able to come down and pass through and see all of these amazing remains in a way which together combine into a kind of theatre of history.”*

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Above and below: The Mount Zion dig site as it looks today, before excavators return to the site in the summer of 2016. Above photo by Victoria Brogdon

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“This season promises to be spectacular as we come down on the well preserved 2nd Temple period remains,” says Tabor.

The dig directors now look forward to the next excavation season, only one month away with a record number of participants. However, funding is still needed for general operational costs.

“Each year we have the challenge of raising $80,000 in operational funds,” says Tabor. “UNC Charlote covers faculty and staff costs, and our diggers pay a modest fee, but the actual expenses of the dig we have to obtain through fundraising.”

Tabor and colleagues are calling for help from the general public — those who may be interested in “adopting” the site as their own and making a generous donation to help the researchers make more important discoveries for the next season. You can make a tax deductible donation either by check or on-line, to UNC Charlotte—see How to Support the Dig.

More information about the Mount Zion dig can be found at https://digmountzion.uncc.edu/ , https://popular-archaeology.com/issue/summer-2015/article/jerusalem-dig-hits-pay-dirt , and https://popular-archaeology.com/issue/12012013/article/digging-into-first-century-jerusalem-s-rich-and-famous.

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*News video documentary: UNC Charlotte in Jerusalem/NC Now/UNC-TV

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Travel with Popular Archaeology and personally see some of the most exciting archaeological discoveries underpinning the historical basis for the places and events of the biblical accounts!

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This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.

Prehistoric Site in Florida Confirms Pre-Clovis Peopling of the Americas

Posted on May 13, 2016 by No Author -

Radiocarbon dating of a prehistoric archeological site in Florida suggests that 14,550 years ago, hunter-gatherers, possibly accompanied by dogs, butchered or scavenged a mastodon next to a small pond. The findings, based on a four-year study of the Page-Ladson archaeological site in the Aucilla River, about 45 minutes from Tallahassee, Florida, provide a rare glimpse of the earliest human occupation in the southeastern United States, and offer clues to the timing of the disappearance of large animals like the mastodon and camel that roamed the American Southeast during the Late Pleistocene. Additionally, the artifacts at Page-Ladson highlight that much of the earliest record of human habitation of the American Southeast lies submerged and buried in unique depositional settings like those found along the Aucilla River, which passes through Florida on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. This record can only be accessed through underwater investigation, which, if undertaken with precision and care, should reveal a rich and abundant pre-Clovis record for the American Southeast, the authors say.

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Neil Puckett, a Ph.D. student from Texas A&M University involved in the excavations, surfaces with the limb bone of a juvenile mastodon. Credit: Brendan Fenerty

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Divers working underwater at the Page-Ladson site. Image by S. Joy, courtesy of CSFA

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“This is a big deal,” said Florida State University Assistant Professor of Anthropology Jessi Halligan. “There were people here. So how did they live? This has opened up a whole new line of inquiry for us as scientists as we try to understand the settlement of the Americas.”

Halligan and her colleagues, including Michael Waters from Texas A&M University and Daniel Fisher from University of Michigan, excavated the site, which is located about 30 feet underwater in a sinkhole in the Aucilla River. The site was named after Buddy Page, a diver who first brought the site to the attention of archaeologists in the 1980s, and the Ladson family, which owns the property.

In the 1980s and 1990s, researchers James Dunbar and David Webb investigated the site and retrieved several stone tools and a mastodon tusk with cut marks from a tool in a layer more than 14,000 years old. However, the findings received little attention because they were considered too old to be real and questionable because they were found underwater.

Waters and Halligan, who is a diver, had maintained an interest in the site and believed that it was worth another look.

Working in near-zero-visibility waters in the murky Aucilla River between 2012 and 2014, divers, including Dunbar, excavated stone tools and bones of extinct animals.

They found a biface—a knife with sharp edges on both sides that is used for cutting and butchering animals—as well as other tools. Daniel Fisher, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Michigan also took another look at the mastodon tusk that Dunbar had retrieved during the earlier excavations and found it displayed obvious signs of cutting created to remove the tusk from the skull.

The tusk may have been removed to gain access to edible tissue at its base, Fisher said.

Fisher reassembled and re-examined the tusk and concluded that the original interpretation–that the deep, parallel grooves in the surface of the tusk are cut marks made by humans using stone tools to remove the tusk from the skull—is correct.

“These grooves are clearly the result of human activity and, together with new radiocarbon dates, they indicate that humans were processing a mastodon carcass in what is now the southeastern United States much earlier than was generally accepted,” said Fisher.

“Each tusk this size would have had more than 15 pounds of tender, nutritious tissue in its pulp cavity, and that would certainly have been of value,” he said.

Fisher has excavated mammoths and mastodons in North America and Siberia and has personal experience with the practicalities of tusk removal. He once removed a tusk from a juvenile woolly mammoth preserved in Siberian permafrost.

That carcass was in a condition similar to a freshly killed animal, he said. Because he needed to avoid unnecessary damage to the specimen, and because he had to improvise methods and tools to get the job done, it took him about eight hours.

“Compared to ancient hunters, I was a novice,” Fisher said. “But I quickly learned that the most important thing was disrupting the ligament fibers holding the tusk in place.”

Another possible reason to extract a tusk is that ancient humans who lived in this same area are known to have used ivory to make weapons, he added.

“In addition, our work provides strong evidence that early human hunters did not hunt mastodons to extinction as quickly as supporters of the so-called ‘Blitzkrieg’ hypothesis have argued,” Fisher said. “Instead, the evidence from this site shows that humans and megafauna coexisted for at least 2,000 years.”

Despite genetic evidence that people were traveling to the Americas before Clovis, the archaeological record of human habitation in the region between 14,000 and 15,000 years ago is sparse. However, the long-held belief that Clovis represented the first people to enter the Americas is being overturned by new evidence from early sites. The Page-Ladson site is one of just a handful of archaeological gold-mines in the Americas harboring evidence of a pre-Clovis occupation – evidence that has been challenged since researchers discovered the site in the 1980s. So Jessi Halligan, Michael Waters and a team of experts returned to Page-Ladson in 2012 to reevaluate the archaeological evidence that lay undisturbed in the river bed. Using the latest radiocarbon dating techniques, the researchers confirmed the ages of the stone artifacts and mastodon remains to about 14,550 years ago. The artifacts tell the story of what was likely the butchering or scavenging of a mastodon next to a pond in a bedrock sinkhole within the Aucilla River. Evidence from Page-Ladson, along with that from other sites like Monte Verde in Chile, shows that people were living in both hemispheres of the Americas at least 14,550 years ago and confirms genetic predictions for the timing of the arrival of humans into the Americas. Moreover, microscopic tracking of Sporormiella (a fungus often found on animal dung) in sediments at the site, along with other evidence from Page-Ladson sediment samples, indicate that hunter-gatherers along the Gulf Coastal Plain in North America likely coexisted with and used large animals for at least 2,000 years before these animals became extinct around 12,600 years ago.

Texas A&M’s Waters said the Page-Ladson site has changed dramatically since it was first occupied 14,550 years ago. Millennia of deposition associated with rising water tables tied to sea level rise left the site buried under 15 feet of sediment and submerged.

“Page-Ladson significantly adds to our growing knowledge that people were exploring and settling the Americas between 14,000 and 15,000 years ago,” Waters said. “Archaeological evidence from other sites dating to this time period shows us that people were also adapted to living in Texas, Washington, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and South America. Clearly, people were all over the Americas earlier than we thought.”

“The new discoveries at Page-Ladson show that people were [also] living in the Gulf Coast area much earlier than believed,” said Waters.

Added Halligan: “It’s pretty exciting. We thought we knew the answers to how and when we got here, but now the story is changing.”

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A Mastodon tusk (partially reassembled) from the Page-Ladson site; curvature is typical for an upper tusk from the left side. Credit: DC Fisher, Univ. Michigan Museum of Paleontology

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A close-up photo of a biface as found in 14,550-year-old sediments at the Page-Ladson site. Photo by J. Halligan

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A schematic showing underwater excavation methodology at Page-Ladson, and location of artifact. Artwork by J.Halligan

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Co-principal investigator Michael R. Waters and CSFA student Morgan Smith examining the biface in the field after its discovery. Photo by A. Burke, courtesy of CSFA

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A biface found in situ at Page-Ladson in 14,550-year old sediments. Image courtesy of CSFA

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Assistant Professor Jessi Halligan and a research team recovered several bones and stone tools from the Page-Ladson site on the Aucilla River. Credit: Bruce Palmer/Florida State University

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Details of the discovery and research are published in Science Advances, a publication of the AAAS, a nonprofit society.

Source: Adapted and edited from press releases of Science Advances , Florida State University, and the University of Michigan.

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Scientists proclaim a new civilization in the Aegean Bronze Age

Posted on May 12, 2016 by No Author -

Zurich, Switzerland, 12 May 2016 – A scientific publication, book and comprehensive website (www.luwianstudies.org) made public today by scientists at the Luwian Studies foundation in Zurich, Switzerland, advance and add weight to the view that Aegean prehistory (3000–1200 BCE) suffers from a pro-European bias.

The civilizations of the Bronze Age Aegean recognized until now – the Mycenaean, Minoan and Cycladic – together cover only about one third of the Aegean coasts. The definition of these cultures goes back to Knossos excavator Arthur Evans, who with his publications in the 1920s laid the foundation for the research discipline of Aegean prehistory. At that time, Greece and Turkey were at war. Since the philhellene Evans aimed to steer research interest towards Greece, his model disregarded cultures on Anatolian soil – despite the fact that Troy, the most important stratified archaeological site in the world, is situated in Anatolia.

On their foundation’s website, researchers at Luwian Studies have today published a comprehensive database of Middle and Late Bronze Age archaeological sites in western Turkey. This unique catalog is the result of several years of literature research and field surveys. It currently covers over 340 expansive settlements, including their coordinates and aerial photographs. More details will be added during the course of the year as part of a project in collaboration with the University of Zurich. Geographic information systems have placed the settlements into context with rivers, lakes, mineral deposits, trade routes, flood plains and farmland to provide quantifiable data on the relationship between humans and the landscape.

A new civilization emerges

The number, size, and wealth of artifacts of Bronze Age sites in western Turkey shows that this region was covered by a network of settlements and petty states throughout the 2nd millennium BCE. These cannot be attributed to either the Mycenaean civilization on the Greek mainland or the Hittite kingdom in Central Asia Minor. The names of these petty states (Arzawa, Wilusa, Mira, Hapalla, Lukka, etc.) are well known from documents of that time. If these states had formed an alliance, it would probably have surpassed the Mycenaean or Hittite realms in terms of political, economic, and military power. Since western Asia Minor possessed its own writing system, whose symbols appeared as early as 2000 BCE, it is justifiable to speak of a civilization in its own right. Many of the people in western Asia Minor spoke Luwian, a language in the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. For this reason, the newly recognized civilization is called “Luwian.”

Dr. Eberhard Zangger, President of Luwian Studies, explains the potential of these new discoveries: “The demise of the Late Bronze Age cultures shortly after 1200 BCE is perhaps the greatest mystery of Mediterranean archaeology. Egyptian temple inscriptions depict the invasions of the Sea Peoples. Ancient Greek historians see the Trojan War as the cause of the collapse. It could well be that the Sea Peoples indeed came from the Luwian petty states in western Asia Minor, who used a fleet to attack the Hittite kingdom from the south, whereas the so-called Trojan War was a counterattack by the allied Mycenaean kingdoms against the Luwian coastal cities that occurred somewhat later, of which only the last battle was fought at Troy.”

During their inquiry, the researchers have come across numerous non-Homeric descriptions of the Trojan War containing details that are consistent with the findings of excavations.

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17th century painting of the sack of Troy. Wikimedia Commons

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More information can be obtained at www.luwianstudies.org.

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Source: Press release of Luwian Studies.

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New research suggests climate change may have contributed to extinction of Neanderthals

Posted on May 11, 2016 by No Author -

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER—A researcher at the University of Colorado Denver has found that Neanderthals in Europe showed signs of nutritional stress during periods of extreme cold, suggesting climate change may have contributed to their demise around 40,000 years ago.

Jamie Hodgkins, a zooarchaeologist and assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at CU Denver, analyzed the remains of prey animals and found that Neanderthals worked especially hard to extract every calorie from the meat and bones during colder time periods. Her results were published in the Journal of Human Evolution last week.

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Profile of a Neanderthal. Wellcome Library, London, Wikimedia Commons

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Hodgkins examined bones discovered in caves once inhabited by Neanderthals in southwestern France for marks demonstrating how the carcasses of deer and other animals were butchered and used for food. During colder, glacial periods, the bones were more heavily processed. In particular, they showed higher frequencies of percussion marks, indicating a nutritional need to consume all of the marrow, probably signaling reduced food availability.

“Our research uncovers a pattern showing that cold, harsh environments were stressful for Neanderthals,” said Hodgkins. “As the climate got colder, Neanderthals had to put more into extracting nutrients from bones. This is especially apparent in evidence that reveals Neanderthals attempted to break open even low marrow yield bones, like the small bones of the feet.”

These findings further support the hypothesis that changing climate was a factor in Neanderthal extinction.

“Our results illustrate that climate change has real effects,” said Hodgkins. “Studying Neanderthal behavior is an opportunity to understand how a rapidly changing climate affected our closest human relatives in the past. If Neanderthal populations were already on the edge of survival at the end of the Ice Age, the increased competition that occurred when modern humans appeared on the scene may have pushed them over the edge.”

Source: University of Colorado Denver press release.

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Archaeologists uncover 13,000-year-old bones of ancient, extinct species of bison

Posted on May 11, 2016 by No Author -

FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY—In what is considered one of the oldest and most important archaeological digs in North America, scientists have uncovered what they believe are the bones of a 13,000- to 14,000-year-old ancient, extinct species of bison at the Old Vero Man Site in Vero Beach, Fla. Archaeologists from Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute made this discovery just 10 feet below the ground’s surface during the final stretch of the 2016 excavation efforts at the Vero Beach site.

The bone was found below a layer that contained material from the Pleistocene period when the last ice age was thought to have occurred. The archaeologists identified the bison using an upper molar, which is thought to be representative of a Bison antiquus, a direct ancestor of the American bison that roamed North America until it became extinct. Because bison was a grassland-adapted animal, nearly 100 percent of their bones disintegrated after death unless they were preserved in some way.

“This finding is especially significant because of the meticulous documentation that has been involved,” said James M. Adovasio, Ph.D., principal investigator. “Along with the fact that bones like this have never been found on land as part of a calculated archaeological effort. Others like this have all been found underwater, in sinkholes or streams.”

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In what is considered one of the oldest and most important archaeological digs in North America, scientists have uncovered what they believe are the bones of a 13,000- to 14,000-year-old ancient, extinct species of bison at the Old Vero Man Site in Vero Beach, Fla. Credit: Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, Florida Atlantic University

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Bison antiquus, sometimes referred to as the “ancient bison,” was the most common large herbivore of the North American continent for more than 10,000 years, and is a direct ancestor of the living American bison. They were approximately 8 feet tall, 15 feet long and weighed close to 3,500 pounds.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better representative species from that era,” said Andrew Hemmings, Ph.D., lead archaeologist. “We now know that people were here in Vero Beach at that time.”

The bones of the ancient bison have been moved to FAU’s Ancient DNA Lab at Harbor Branch for further research and examination. The lab was established in 2011 to investigate the population biology, genetic diversity and species composition of past ecosystems.

Scientists also found other bones at the site from small mammals, along with slivers of bones from large mammals that could have come from mammoth, mastodon, sloth or bison. Pieces of charcoal and the head of a fly were discovered earlier in this year’s excavation, which began in late February.

The Old Man Vero Site was originally discovered in 1915 after construction efforts on a drainage canal exposed the well-preserved remains of late Pleistocene flora and fauna in association with human remains and artifacts.

Source: News release of the Florida Atlantic University.

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The archaeological dig was led by Harbor Branch and FAU’s Department of Anthropology within the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, in partnership with the Old Vero Man Ice Age Sites Committee (OVIASC).- FAU –

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Archaeologists find world’s oldest axe in Australia

Posted on May 10, 2016 by No Author -

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY—Archaeologists from The Australian National University (ANU) have unearthed fragments from the edge of the world’s oldest-known axe, found in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Lead archeologist Professor Sue O’Connor said the axe dates back between 46,000 and 49,000 years, around the time people first arrived on the continent.

“This is the earliest evidence of hafted axes in the world. Nowhere else in the world do you get axes at this date,” said Professor O’Connor from the ANU School of Culture, History and Language.

“In Japan such axes appear about 35,000 years ago. But in most countries in the world they arrive with agriculture after 10,000 years ago.”

Professor O’Connor said this discovery showed early Aboriginal technology was not as simple as has been previously suggested.

A hafted axe is an axe with a handle attached.

“Australian stone artefacts have often been characterized as being simple. But clearly that’s not the case when you have these hafted axes earlier in Australia than anywhere else in the world,” she said.

Professor O’Connor said evidence suggests the technology was developed in Australia after people arrived around 50,000 years ago.

“We know that they didn’t have axes where they came from. There’s no axes in the islands to our north. They arrived in Australia and innovated axes,” she said.

Once unearthed, the flakes were then analysed by Professor Peter Hiscock from the University of Sydney.

“Since there are no known axes in Southeast Asia during the Ice Age, this discovery shows us that when humans arrived in Australia they began to experiment with new technologies, inventing ways to exploit the resources they encountered,” Professor Hiscock said.

“The question of when axes were invented has been pursued for decades, since archaeologists discovered that in Australia axes were older than in many other places. Now we have a discovery that appears to answer the question,” Professor Hiscock said.

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An example of a hafted axe similar to the one the unearthed flakes would have come from. Credit: Stuart Hay, ANU.

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Axe flakes from the excavation. Credit: ANU

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Example of complete axe head. Credit: Stuart Hay, ANU

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Examples of full axe heads. Credit: Stuart Hay, ANU

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Sue O’Connor and Tim Maloney with axe example. Credit: Stuart Hay, ANU

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Professor Hiscock said although humans spread across Australia, axe technology did not spread with them.

“Axes were only made in the tropical north. These differences between northern Australia, where axes were always used, and southern Australia, where they were not, originated around the time of colonization and persisted until the last few thousand years when axes began to be made in most southern parts of mainland Australia,” Professor Hiscock said

The axe fragment was initially excavated in the early 1990s by Professor O’Connor at Carpenter’s Gap 1, a large rock shelter in Windjana Gorge National Park in the Kimberley region of WA.

New studies of the fragment have revealed that it comes from an axe made of basalt that had been shaped and polished by grinding it against a softer rock like sandstone.

This type of axe would have been very useful for a variety of tasks including making spears and chopping down or taking the bark off trees.

This work resulted from an Australian Research Council Linkage grant awarded to Professor O’Connor and Professor Jane Balme of The University of Western Australia.

An article on the discovery has been published in in the journal Australian Archaeology.

Source: News release of the Australian National University.

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Digging the Secrets of Ancient Maya Gardeners in the Yucatan

Posted on May 9, 2016 by No Author -

Known as el Mayab before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Yucatán in Mexico was populated by the ancient Maya and perhaps best known for great ancient Maya cities such as Chichén Itzá and Uxmal. But it was not a naturally friendly place for farming. Its shallow soil composition and expansive natural foundation of karstic limestone bedrock made it, to say the least, a challenging environment for gardening and agricultural production.

Something called a rejollada likely made a significant difference, however. That’s what Kate Leonard, a young Canadian archaeologist who recently excavated in them, discovered in April of 2016.

“A rejollada is a large circular sinkhole in the natural limestone bedrock that often contains deep moist soil,” says Leonard. “They’re actually quite large. I was surprised when I walked down into my first one. They do vary in size but the ones we were excavating could fit a soccer field in them. They are large enough that it is difficult to indicate in a photograph that you are in a deep depression.”

Most importantly, they seem to have been a life-saver for the ancient Maya when it came to gardening and growing edible plants.

“In a dry landscape with very little topsoil it’s understandable that these were (and still are) highly valued as locations for gardening. In the past maize and other vegetables were likely grown in them, as were the important crops of cacao and cotton,” she adds. Leonard says that the village of Tahcabo, where she has been excavating, has been occupied since the Late Preclassic period (~450 BCE-100 CE), and that the numerous rejolladas and two large cenotes (natural, water-filled sinkholes) in the area made the village a very desirable place to live for the early Maya settlers. It may explain one way the ancient Maya people managed to live and even thrive in what otherwise would have been a relatively inhospitable environment for a developing civilization.

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Cenotes and rejolladas are among the distinctive geological features of the Yucatán Peninsula. Depicted here is the large sacred cenote at Chichén Itzá. Emil Kehnel, Wikimedia Commons

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Arriving and staying in the larger village of Calotmul, located in the center of the Yucatán Peninsula, Leonard and her working companions drove each day twenty minutes through rural bush and agricultural land to reach Tahcabo, where the targeted rejollada excavation sites were located. Leonard was part of a group of investigators and excavators with the Proyecto Arqueológico Colaborativo del Oriente de Yucatán (PACOY) Project working under Dr. Patricia A. McAnany of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, along with InHerit, and Dr. Iván Batún Alpuche of the Universidad del Oriente in Valladolid and the State Archives of the Yucatán. Leonard, for her part, worked closely with Field Coordinator Maia Dedrick, who was conducting primary research for her doctoral dissertation by excavating 2m x 2m trenches in six of Tahcabo’s rejolladas.

“We’re excavating rejolladas and abandoned settlements in order to better understand changes in Maya horticultural practices that took place when Spaniards first came to the area around Tahcabo,” says Leonard. “The Rejolladas are natural solution sinkholes in the karstic limestone that collect rich soils ideal for cultivation.”

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Above and below: A streetscape of the small village of Tahcabo, and a typical home site in Tahcabo. Photo courtesy Kate Leonard

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Above: A 2x2m excavation underway in a rejollada. Photo courtesy Kate Leonard

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Planning limestone at the end of an ancient settlement mound. Photo by M. Dedrick of PACOY

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The archaeologists are systematically taking archaeo-botanical samples to analyze and compare the plant remains at different depths and then dating them using radiocarbon dating (C14) techniques. The study will hopefully provide a picture of how the horticultural practices in Tahcabo changed over time, including after the arrival of the Spaniards. “The rejolladas located in Tahcabo itself are still used for gardening, for making earth ovens (píib) and for conducting the Ch’a’ Cháak rain ceremony. There are usually chickens wandering through and there could be vegetables growing, tree crops, animals, or some other activity taking place,” says Leonard. Thus far, reports Leonard, two rejolladas have been completely excavated and another one started, including the surface excavation of a nearby abandoned settlement.

Excavating in the Yucatán environment at this time of year was not easy work. The relentless heat alone made it almost unbearable, she related. “I only stopped sweating between the hours of 4 am and 6 am. In order to beat the heat we began work on site at 7:30 am and began packing up at 1:30 pm.” Lunch time broke the day from the labor of the morning hours, with the welcome consumption of traditional Yucatecan Maya Mexican food prepared for the excavators daily. After lunch, a much-needed one-hour rest break at the dig house would be followed by two hours of lab work entailing paperwork, data entry and doing flotations.

There is more work ahead. “The season will continue on throughout the spring and summer so much more will be accomplished,” she says. But, as much as she would like to stay, Leonard would not be there to see the season to its end. At the time of this report, she had already moved on to her next destination. Her time in the Yucatán was actually part of an ambitious enterprising global project she hatched on her own to volunteer her knowledge and skills to work at no less than 12 projects in 12 countries in 12 months. Tahcabo was to be her fourth stop on her globe-trotting worldwide archaeology project, what she has called Global Archaeology: A Year of Digs.

Popular Archaeology will be following and reporting on Leonard’s worldwide experiences periodically throughout 2016 as she hops from one location to another during her global journey. To continue the work, however, Leonard will need ﬁnancial support from donors. Readers interested in reading about and supporting her self-directed Global Archaeology crowdfunded project can learn more at gofundme.com/globalarchaeology.

See more about Leonard’s experience with the PACOY Project here.

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Ancient trading networks and Arabian camel diversity

Posted on May 9, 2016 by No Author -

A study of modern and ancient camel DNA finds that the movement of ancient caravan routes may have shaped the genetic diversity of Arabian camels. Despite the widespread use of camels in hot, arid conditions for the past 3,000 years, little is known about their evolutionary history and domestication. To examine the population structures of wild and extinct Arabian camels, Pamela Burger and colleagues examined the genetic diversity of almost 1,100 modern Arabian camels, or dromedaries, from across the species’ range, and analyzed ancient DNA from wild and early-domesticated Arabian camels. The authors found substantial shared genetic variation in modern camel populations, possibly due to the use of camels in long-distance caravan networks. The authors also identified a genetically distinct camel population in Eastern Africa, which may have been relatively isolated due to geographic, physiological, and cultural barriers. Analysis of ancient DNA from up to 7,000-year-old dromedary specimens suggested that domesticated camels originated from wild populations in the Southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula, consistent with archaeological findings. The study suggests that the wild camels, which are now extinct, periodically helped restock domesticated populations. Unlike many other domesticated animals, modern camel populations have maintained their ancestral genetic diversity, potentially enabling adaptation to future changes in terrain and climate, according to the authors.

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Long-distance and back-and-forth movements in ancient caravan routes shaped the dromedaries’ genetic diversity. Image courtesy of Fasial Almathen

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Wild extinct dromedaries from the Southeast Arabian Peninsula are among the founders of the domestic dromedary gene pool. Petroglyph from Wadi Rum, Jordan. Image courtesy of Pamela Burger.

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Source: Press release of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

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*“Ancient and modern DNA reveal dynamics of domestication and cross-continental dispersal of the dromedary,” by Faisal Almathen et al.

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Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA

Posted on May 5, 2016 by No Author -

HUMAN EVOLUTION—A team of eminent specialists from a variety of academic disciplines has coalesced around a goal of creating new insight into the life and genius of Leonardo da Vinci by means of authoritative new research and modern detective technologies, including DNA science.

The Leonardo Project is in pursuit of several possible physical connections to Leonardo, beaming radar, for example, at an ancient Italian church floor to help corroborate extensive research to pinpoint the likely location of the tomb of his father and other relatives. A collaborating scholar also recently announced the successful tracing of several likely DNA relatives of Leonardo living today in Italy.

If granted the necessary approvals, the Project will compare DNA from Leonardo’s relatives past and present with physical remnants—hair, bones, fingerprints and skin cells—associated with the Renaissance figure whose life marked the rebirth of Western civilization.

The Project’s objectives, motives, methods, and work to date are detailed in a special issue of the journal Human Evolution, published coincident with a meeting of the group hosted in Florence this week under the patronage of Eugenio Giani, President of the Tuscan Regional Council (Consiglio Regionale della Toscana).

Born in Vinci, Italy, Leonardo died in 1519, age 67, and was buried in Amboise, southwest of Paris. His creative imagination foresaw and described innovations hundreds of years before their invention, such as the helicopter and armored tank. His artistic legacy includes the iconic Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.

The idea behind the Project, founded in 2014, has inspired and united anthropologists, art historians, genealogists, microbiologists, and other experts from leading universities and institutes in France, Italy, Spain, Canada and the USA, including specialists from the J. Craig Venter Institute of California, which pioneered the sequencing of the human genome.

The work underway resembles in complexity recent projects such as the successful search for the tomb of historic author Miguel de Cervantes and, in March 2015, the identification of England’s King Richard III from remains exhumed from beneath a UK parking lot, fittingly re-interred 500 years after his death.

Like Richard, Leonardo was born in 1452, and was buried in a setting that underwent changes in subsequent years such that the exact location of the grave was lost.

If DNA and other analyses yield a definitive identification, conventional and computerized techniques might reconstruct the face of Leonardo from models of the skull.”

In addition to Leonardo’s physical appearance, information potentially revealed from the work includes his ancestry and additional insight into his diet, state of health, personal habits, and places of residence.

Beyond those questions, and the verification of Leonardo’s “presumed remains” in the chapel of Saint-Hubert at the Château d’Amboise, the Project aims to develop a genetic profile extensive enough to understand better his abilities and visual acuity, which could provide insights into other individuals with remarkable qualities.

It may also make a lasting contribution to the art world, within which forgery is a multi-billion dollar industry, by advancing a technique for extracting and sequencing DNA from other centuries-old works of art, and associated methods of attribution.

Says Jesse Ausubel, Vice Chairman of the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, sponsor of the Project’s meetings in 2015 and 2016: “I think everyone in the group believes that Leonardo, who devoted himself to advancing art and science, who delighted in puzzles, and whose diverse talents and insights continue to enrich society five centuries after his passing, would welcome the initiative of this team—indeed would likely wish to lead it were he alive today.”

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“Vitruvian Man”, by Leonardo da Vinci. This work done by the artist is used to illustrate the cover of the special issue of Human Evolution that features the Leonardo Project. Wikimedia Commons

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Leonardo’s fingerprints

In the journal, group members underline the highly conservative, precautionary approach required at every phase of the Project, which they aim to conclude in 2019 to mark the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death.

For example, one objective is to verify whether fingerprints on Leonardo’s paintings, drawings, and notebooks can yield DNA consistent with that extracted from identified remains.

Early last year, Project collaborators from the International Institute for Humankind Studies in Florence opened discussions with the laboratory in that city where Leonardo’s Adoration of the Magi has been undergoing restoration for nearly two years, to explore the possibility of analyzing dust from the painting for possible DNA traces. A crucial question is whether traces of DNA remain or whether restoration measures and the passage of time have obliterated all evidence of Leonardo’s touch.

In preparation for such analysis, a team from the J. Craig Venter Institute and the University of Florence is examining privately owned paintings believed to be of comparable age to develop and calibrate techniques for DNA extraction and analysis. At this year’s meeting in Florence, the researchers also described a pioneering effort to analyze the microbiome of a painting thought to be about five centuries old.

If human DNA can one day be obtained from Leonardo’s work and sequenced, the genetic material could then be compared with genetic information from skeletal or other remains that may be exhumed in the future.

Says Eugenio Giani, President of the Regional Council of Tuscany: “The fact that a team of eminent scholars from different academic disciplines and parts of the world has united with the common objective of furthering investigation into one of the greatest geniuses is positive and very important.”

“As President of the Tuscan Regional Council, I am pleased to host in our headquarters a meeting that shows key aspects our current state of knowledge of Leonardo da Vinci. My hope, as a Florentine and Tuscan, is that all this will help outline a portrait of Leonardo as faithful as possible to reality, bringing out the true bond that he had with Florence, starting from the properties of his family in the city. Scientifically, the chance to create, through new research and technology, a new vision of the life of Leonardo starting from a study of DNA is very important.”

Compiled by Project collaborator Claire Stypulkowski, the collection of five journal articles trace the path Leonardo took from his Italian birthplace to his final days serving the King of France. They outline the efforts to date, detailing the history and evidence regarding Leonardo’s life and his remains in Amboise, the research and high-tech investigation of his father’s tomb in Florence, and the tracing of family descendants.

Says Brunetto Chiarelli of the International Institute for Humankind Studies and editor of Human Evolution: “We are proud to share with the public the details of this exciting endeavor.”

And he underlined this message from the Project’s introductory paper: “The search for Leonardo’s remains at Amboise Castle, for the remains or traces of his family members in Florence, Vinci, and Milan, and for traces of his DNA in his works is fraught with difficulty.”

“Matching Leonardo’s DNA to that of his family presents puzzles that are minutely specific to their history and circumstances, but the tools the investigators use are generic and broadly applicable. We stand to gain not only greater historical knowledge of Leonardo but possibly a reconstruction of his genetic profile, which could provide insights into other individuals with remarkable qualities.”

“The last Plantagenet King of England and the author who gave us Don Quixote are two whose places in history are somewhat better documented now through recent anthropological study. Is Leonardo the next?”

Source: Human Evolution press release. The Leonardo Project

Organizations participating in the Leonardo Project include:

The Institut de Paléontologie Humaine, Paris
The International Institute for Humankind Studies, Florence
The Laboratory of Molecular Anthropology and Paleogenetics, Biology Department, University of Florence
Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci, in Vinci, Italy
J. Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla, California
Laboratory of Genetic Identification, University of Granada, Spain
The Rockefeller University, New York City

Initial support comes from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, Washington D.C.

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French company documents destruction of archaeological sites in Syria

Posted on May 4, 2016 by No Author -

Just a few days after the liberation of Palmyra, Iconem – a French company specializing in the 3D digitization of unique and vulnerable archaeological sites – visited the devastated ancient city to carry out the first 3D survey of the damage.

As a long-term partner of the DGAM (Direction Générale des Antiquités et des Musées – the Syrian Directo- rate-General of Antiquities and Museums), the company accompanied the first group of Syrian scientists to arrive on the site on April 5, 2016.

A SOLUTION FOR SURVEYING MINED AREAS

The process of removing landmines from the site has not yet been completed, largely preventing ground-level photography, but Iconem’s drone-based photographic technology has provided a solution to this problem. The company applied expertise in 3D surveying and analyses to accurately determine the extent of the damage caused by the ISIS terrorists.

FIVE HIGH-PRIORITY SITES

In partnership with the DGAM, Iconem is currently establishing an accurate picture of the destruction affecting the temples of Bel and Baalshamin, the Monumental Arch, the Valley of Tombs and the museum; the five sites in Palmyra which have suffered the greatest damage. “The two temples and the arch have been demolished, but the majority of their component blocks are still present”, reported Iconem’s cofounder Yves Ubelmann from Syria. “They are spread across the area, but some of them are whole and have not been destroyed.”

However, the museum has been ransacked. The building has suffered extensive damage from missiles piercing the roof, and archaeological objects have been shattered. In particular, the heads of the statues have all been systematically defaced.

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The Temple of Bel as it existed in 2010, before the destruction. Bernard Gagnon, Wikimedia Commons

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SOME HOPE OF RECONSTRUCTION

However, there is hope that restoration may be possible: “The fragments of these objects have not been removed or sold; they have simply been abandoned where they lie”, Yves Ubelmann continued. “This means that there is some hope of reconstructing them.”

Iconem will be closely involved in the restoration works of the DGAM. The company’s highly accurate surveys will enable it to produce 3D models of the site that scientists from all over the world will be able to consult in order to analyze the damage and envisage possible restorations. For example, Iconem has already produced initial 3D models of the Citadel of Palmyra and the Temple of Bel (visuals below) which show the damage the buildings have suffered, and which can be viewed on the web platform sketchfab.

The Iconem/DGAM partnership is part of the “Syrian Heritage” project, a long-term program to document all of Syria’s threatened heritage with a view to preserving the memory of these sites. 3D models of three Syrian archaeological sites have been produced using the technique known as photogrammetry and are already freely accessible on the websites of Iconem and the DGAM.

In addition to the 3D digitization process currently under way in Syria, Iconem’s ambition is to preserve the memory of archaeological sites from all over the world in order to transmit them to future generations via a dedicated online platform available to the general public.

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Palmyra Citadel Comparison by Iconem on Sketchfab

The Palmyra castle or Fakhr-al-Din al-Ma’ani Castle was built by the Mamluks in the XIIIth century on a hill overlooking the antique city of Palmyra. Since 1980, the castle and Palmyra are both inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

In May 2015, the castle was taken by ISIS troops because of its strong fortification and strategic location. During the Palmyra offensive in march 2016, the Syrian government’s army succeeded in retaking the city but the castle was unfortunately damaged by retreating ISIS fighters. The stairway leading to the entrance is now completely destroyed, as well as some of the eastern towers. The Syrian Director of the DGAM, Maamoun Abdelkarim, has declared that the castle will be restored.

In partnership with the DGAM, ICONEM contributes to the castle’s restoration by carrying out 3D models representing the castle before and after the conflict, which will be given to archeologists and restorers.

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Temple of Bel by Iconem on Sketchfab

In partnership with the DGAM, the ICONEM’s team was the first one to be in Palmyra since Daesh’s departure. A new phase of the major project, Syrian Heritage, this mission afforded the opportunity to provide a clear picture of the damages suffered by the “pearl of the desert”, and more specifically by the Temple of Bel, as it has been left behind by Daesh fighters, using photogrammetry.

The digitalized 3D model allows us to observe the existence of stone blocks remaining almost intact, meaning that there might be some hope for a partial reconstruction. Some other blocks, however, have been dynamited.

ICONEM’s support in Palmyra has been essential to documenting the appearance and state of the site immediately after it’s liberation, which is going to be helpful to the scientific community.

Dedicated in 32 CE and consecrated to the protective divinity of Palmyra, the Mesopotamian god Bel, the Temple of Bel was, before its destruction, one of the best preserved ancient temples of Syria.

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Source: Adapted and edited from the subject Iconem pess releases.

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The French start-up company Iconem was created in 2013 by Yves Ubelmann, an architect specializing in archaeology, and Philippe Barthélémy, an airplane and helicopter pilot. The company is now a world leader in scanning unique archaeological sites and employs nine people – architects, engineers and graphic artists – who specialize in 3D production.

The company has made a name for itself by taking on unprecedented technological challenges, including the complete modelling of Pompeii as well as scanning sites in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti. All of these plans will soon be available to consult online on a special platform which constitutes a unique virtual digital encyclopaedia.

Using the latest technologies and procedures, drone photography and photogrammetry, Iconem works to preserve unique archaeological heritage sites from around the world, with the aim of keeping their memory alive for future generations.

See more about www.iconem.com.

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New interpretation of the Rök runestone inscription changes view of Viking Age

Posted on May 3, 2016 by No Author -

UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG—The Rök Runestone, erected in the late 800s in the Swedish province of Östergötland, is the world’s most well-known runestone. Its long inscription has seemed impossible to understand, despite the fact that it is relatively easy to read. A new interpretation of the inscription has now been presented – an interpretation that breaks completely with a century-old interpretative tradition. What has previously been understood as references to heroic feats, kings and wars in fact seems to refer to the monument itself.

“The inscription on the Rök Runestone is not as hard to understand as previously thought,” says Per Holmberg, associate professor of Scandinavian languages at the University of Gothenburg. “The riddles on the front of the stone have to do with the daylight that we need to be able to read the runes, and on the back are riddles that probably have to do with the carving of the runes and the runic alphabet, the so called futhark.”

Previous research has treated the Rök Runestone as a unique runestone that gives accounts of long forgotten acts of heroism. This understanding has sparked speculations about how Varin, who made the inscriptions on the stone, was related to Gothic kings. In his research, Holmberg shows that the Rök Runestone can be understood as more similar to other runestones from the Viking Age. In most cases, runestone inscriptions say something about themselves.

“Already 10 years ago, the linguist Professor Bo Ralph proposed that the old idea that the Rök Runestone mentions the Gothic emperor Theodoric is based on a minor reading error and a major portion of nationalistic wishful thinking. What has been missing is an interpretation of the whole inscription that is unaffected by such fantasies.”

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Per Holmberg, researcher at University of Gothenburg with the Rök Runestone. Credit: University of Gothenburg

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Holmberg’s study is based on social semiotics, a theory about how language is a potential for realizing meaning in different types of texts and contexts.

“Without a modern text theory, it would not have been possible to explore which meanings are the most important for runestones. Nor would it have been possible to test the hypothesis that the Rök Runestone expresses similar meanings as other runestones, despite the fact that its inscription is unusually long.”

One feature of the Rök Runestone that researchers have struggled with is that its inscription begins by listing in numerical order what it wants the reader to guess (‘Secondly, say who…’), but then seems to skip all the way to ‘twelfth, …’. Previous research has assumed there was an oral version of the message that included the missing nine riddles. Holmberg reaches a surprising conclusion:

“If you let the inscription lead you step by step around the stone, the twelfth actually appears as the twelfth thing the reader is supposed to consider. It’s not the inscription that skips over something. It’s the researchers that have taken a wrong way through the inscription, in order to make it be about heroic deeds.”

For over a century, the traditional interpretation has contributed to our understanding of the Viking Age. With the new interpretation, the Rök Runestone does not carry a message of honour and vengeance. Instead the message concerns how the technology of writing gives us an opportunity to commemorate those who have passed away.

Source: University of Gothenburg press release

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The study is presented in the article, Answers to the Rök runestone riddles: A study of meaning-making and spatiality, Futhark. International Journal of Runic Studies 6 (2015, publ. 2016). 65-106. The article is also available at: http://urn.kb.se/res?urnolve=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-278891

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Scientists unravel genetic history of Ice Age Europe

Posted on May 2, 2016 by No Author -

HOWARD HUGHES MEDICAL INSTITUTE—Analyses of ancient DNA from prehistoric humans paint a picture of dramatic population change in Europe from 45,000 to 7,000 years ago, according to a new study led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator David Reich at Harvard Medical School.

The new genetic data, published May 2, 2016 in Nature, reveal two big changes in prehistoric human populations that are closely linked to the end of the last Ice Age around 19,000 years ago. As the ice sheet retreated, Europe was repopulated by prehistoric humans from southwest Europe (e.g., Spain). Then, in a second event about 14,000 years ago, populations from the southeast (e.g., Turkey, Greece) spread into Europe, displacing the first group of humans.

Archeological studies have shown that modern humans swept into Europe about 45,000 years ago and caused the demise of the Neanderthals, indicated by the disappearance of Neanderthal tools in the archaeological record, explained Reich. The researchers also knew that during the Ice Age—a long period of time that ended about 12,000 years ago, with its peak intensity between 25,000 and 19,000 years ago—glaciers covered Scandinavia and northern Europe all the way to northern France. As the ice sheets retreated beginning 19,000 years ago, prehistoric humans spread back into northern Europe.

But prior to this study, there were only four samples of prehistoric European modern humans 45,000 to 7,000 years old for which genomic data were available, which made it all but impossible to understand how human populations migrated or evolved during this period. “Trying to represent this vast period of European history with just four samples is like trying to summarize a movie with four still images. With 51 samples, everything changes; we can follow the narrative arc; we get a vivid sense of the dynamic changes over time,” said Reich. “And what we see is a population history that is no less complicated than that in the last 7,000 years, with multiple episodes of population replacement and immigration on a vast and dramatic scale, at a time when the climate was changing dramatically.”

The genetic data show that, beginning 37,000 years ago, all Europeans come from a single founding population that persisted through the Ice Age, said Reich. The founding population has some deep branches in different parts of Europe, one of which is represented by a specimen from Belgium. This branch seems to have been displaced in most parts of Europe 33,000 years ago, but around 19,000 years ago, a population related to it re-expanded across Europe, Reich explained. Based on the earliest sample in which this ancestry is observed, it is plausible that this population expanded from the southwest, present-day Spain, after the Ice Age peaked.

The second event that the researchers detected happened 14,000 years ago. “We see a new population turnover in Europe, and this time it seems to be from the east, not the west,” said Reich. “We see very different genetics spreading across Europe that displaces the people from the southwest who were there before. These people persisted for many thousands of years until the arrival of farming.”

The researchers also detected some mixture with Neanderthals, around 45,000 years ago, as modern humans spread across Europe. The prehistoric human populations contained three to six percent of Neanderthal DNA, but today most humans only have about two percent. “Neanderthal DNA is slightly toxic to modern humans,” explained Reich, and this study provides evidence that natural selection is removing Neanderthal ancestry.

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Three ~31,000-year-old skulls from Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic. For the next five thousand years, all samples analyzed in this study—whether from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Austria, or Italy—are closely related, reflecting a population expansion associated with the Gravettian archaeological culture. Credit: Martin Frouz and Ji?í Svoboda

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How the scientists did it

The study was an equal collaboration of David Reich’s laboratory with the laboratories of Svante Pääbo and Johannes Krause, which worked together to extract and analyze the DNA from these ancient bones. Ancient specimens are frequently contaminated with microbial DNA, as well as DNA from archaeologists or lab technicians who have handled the specimens.

To get around these problems, the research team used a technique called in-solution hybrid capture enrichment. The team used about 1.2 million 52-base-pair DNA sequences corresponding to positions in the human genome that they were interested in as bait to target specific segments of DNA. After they washed the ancient DNA over the 1.2 million probe sequences, the researchers sequenced the ancient DNA that was captured by the probes.

To eliminate contamination that may have been introduced from handling the specimens, the researchers restricted analysis of many of the samples to sequences that had characteristic lesions of ancient DNA—a cytosine to uracil error at the beginning of the sequence. Modern DNA typically does not have these errors, so contamination can be avoided by restricting the analysis to the sequences that do have them, said Reich.

“The ability to obtain genome-scale data from ancient bones is a new technology that’s only been around for the last five or six years,” Reich emphasized. “It’s a new scientific instrument that makes it possible to look at things that have not been looked at before.”

Source: Press release of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

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Molecular clock for estimating ages of ancient genomes

Posted on May 2, 2016 by No Author -

Accurate estimation of the ages of ancient human specimens is crucial for interpreting ancient DNA analyses. Though radiocarbon dating, a standard tool for estimating the ages of specimens, is remarkably precise, it can be biased by contamination. Priya Moorjani and colleagues developed a complementary approach for dating ancient genomes by comparing the cumulative numbers of genetic recombination events between ancient and present-day non-Africans since the time of Neanderthal introgression into their common ancestors. Most non-Africans have around 2% Neanderthal ancestry resulting from human and Neanderthal interbreeding that occurred around 50,000 years ago. Assuming an approximately constant recombination rate per generation, the amount of recombination that has occurred since the initial introduction of Neanderthal DNA can be used as a molecular clock to infer the number of missing generations between an ancient genome and present-day genomes. The authors tested their method on five ancient human specimens from North America, Europe, and Siberia with sequenced genomes and radiocarbon dates between 12,000 and 45,000 years ago and obtained age estimates that were consistent with radiocarbon dates. Using correlation between radiocarbon dates, measured in years, and Neanderthal introgression dates, measured in generations, the authors estimated the historic generation interval to be approximately 28 years per generation. According to the authors, the estimate is consistent with those for present-day West Eurasians.

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Working in a clean room, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, took extensive precautions to avoid contaminating Neanderthal DNA samples – extracted from bones like this one – with DNA from any other source, including modern humans. NHGRI researchers are part of the international team that sequenced the genome of the Neanderthal, Homo neanderthalensis.

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The study report* is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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*“A genetic method for dating ancient genomes provides a direct estimate of human generation interval in the last 45,000 years,” by Priya Moorjani et al.

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Return to the Cave of John the Baptist

Posted on May 1, 2016 by No Author -

In March, 2016, Dr. James D. Tabor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte led a group to revisit a cave not far from Jerusalem, a site he and archaeologist Shimon Gibson began excavating more than 15 years ago. Many know it as the Suba Cave, an ancient cave some scholars hypothesize John the Baptist used to perform baptisms near Ein Karem in the Judean hills, a place that tradition holds was his home town………….

Dr. James D. Tabor, one of the world’s foremost authorities on 2nd Temple period Judaism and early Christian origins, calls it “one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the last 25 years”. Located near the Tzuba kibbutz just west of Jerusalem in the Judean hills, an ancient cave was discovered by archaeologists in 1999. Otherwise popularly known as the Suba Cave, it is located near a vineyard within walking distance of Ein Karem, the small town or village long traditionally considered to have been the birthplace and home of John the Baptist and his family.

It all began when Shimon Gibson, a well-known British-born Israeli archaeologist, was first contacted in 1999 about carvings or engravings discovered in a cave near Tzuba and Ein Karem. After his initial investigation of the cave, he called Tabor, by then known as a scholarly expert on John the Baptist.

“I remember I was sitting in my office when he called,” said Tabor. “At first, I didn’t believe it.”

Gibson suggested that the location, the drawings/engravings, and other circumstantial elements pointed to the possibility of some association with John the Baptist. Following examination of photos of the cave drawings sent by Gibson, Tabor knew there was something to this discovery beyond a simple hunch. He, along with Gibson, quickly assembled an excavation team and, very early on, unearthed something that had exceeded all expectations.

“I’ll never forget that day,” said Tabor, as he related the story of the day they really hit “pay dirt”. In the beginning, the cave, having silted up through centuries, allowed only about one meter’s worth of clearance from the roof of the cave to ‘ground level’ in order to enter. “We had to crawl on our hands and knees,” said Tabor. But on the last day of the excavation season in March of 2000, the excavators began to encounter Roman period pottery shards.

“As we dug down we suddenly came across a meter to a meter and a half filled with clearly 1st century CE period pottery shards, and this was out of a total of 4 meters of cultural layers in the cave. So something was really going on in this cave during the early 1st century. We found evidence of thousands of clay vessels in the cave, all broken.”

Successive seasons uncovered a large, plastered cave carved out of bedrock with steps leading into a large interior pool of water. The cave extended 90 feet into the hillside bedrock. Gibson and Tabor suggest that it was a place for ritual immersion, or baptism. In the 1st century CE such a feature was normally characterized as a mikveh, a Jewish ritual bath, ancient examples of which can be found throughout Israel at a variety of archaeological sites. The Suba Cave is now considered to be the largest mikveh in Israel.

Given the abundance and concentration of the vessels — what was determined to have been small one-handled jugs — the archaeologists concluded that they had to have been deliberately broken and deposited in a relatively short time period.

What was happening in this place?

Tabor and Gibson hypothesize that the pottery shards were related to a baptismal ritual conducted in the cave. Based in part on their research of 2nd century manuscripts, they suggest that baptisms at the time of Jesus and John may have followed a set process that included not only dipping, or immersion, in the water, but also the pouring of water over the head from the vessel, the anointing of the right foot (there is a foot-shaped cavity carved out of the bedrock near the steps no far from inside the cave entrance and just above the water line), and the deliberate breaking of the vessel so the vessel could no longer be used for common purposes. The thousands of 1st century jug shards uncovered in the cave were the remains of these vessels.

Was this in fact a cave used by John to baptize people during the time of Jesus? A cave with drawings or engravings that could be interpreted as a pictographic or visual representation of John the Baptist, located very near Ein Karem, the home town of John and his family, with evidence of use as a facility for ritual immersion — all pointed to this possibility, according to the site excavators.

But it should be noted that the Suba Cave was initially created and used for a very different purpose. The plaster lining the interior walls of the cave was radiocarbon dated to the Iron Age, and more specifically, to the time of King Hezekiah of Judah. Five years of excavation and research revealed that the cave, including associated exterior features, was actually initially created and used as a clay-making facility for the manufacture of pottery. The cave was first meant to be “a water reservoir [fed by an adjacent spring, which still exists] for clay making,” says Tabor. “Pottery for the king’s house was made at Tzuba because the clay was so pure. Then it went out of use in the 2nd century BCE and silted over.” It was then re-dug and converted into a ritual immersion facility during the 1st century CE.

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A view of the village of Ein Karem. Gila Brand, Wikimedia Commons

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The Suba Cave entrance, looking toward it from outside the cave. Photo by Victoria Brogdon

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Steps leading down to the Suba Cave entrance. Photo by Daniela Ciubuc

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Looking into the Suba Cave from the interior steps, which descend into the water as is typically characteristic of an ancient mikveh. The interior of the cave is covered in plaster, which has been present since first applied by the ancients during the days of Hezekiah, King of Judah, when it was initially used as a clay-making facility for pottery-making. The water, though it appears murky, is surprisingly clean in terms of bacterial content. Photo by Daniela Ciubuc.

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Rough engraved dawings high on the interior wall of the cave, above the water. Note the figure of a person on the left. Site investigators have interpreted this as an individual, perhaps even John the Baptist, officiating a ritual activity, such as a baptismal rite. Photo by Victoria Brogdon

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This article is a preview excerpt from the article, In Search of the Historical Jesus, to be released as a major feature article in the Summer 2016 issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine.

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Water storage made prehistoric settlement expansion possible in Amazonia

Posted on April 28, 2016 by No Author -

UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG—The pre-Columbian settlements in Amazonia were not limited to the vicinities of rivers and lakes. One example of this can be found in the Santarém region in Brazilian Amazonia, where most archaeological sites are situated in an upland area and are the result of an expansion of settlements in the last few centuries before the arrival of Europeans. This is concluded by a research team consisting of archaeologists from the University of Gothenburg and Brazilian colleagues.

‘Our results stand in contrast to the traditional understanding of pre-Columbian Amazonia. A common view has been that villages only existed along the rivers. However, our work shows that people eventually also populated inland areas,’ says Per Stenborg, archaeologist and director of the Swedish part of the Swedish-Brazilian project Cultivated Wilderness: Socio-economic Development and Environmental Change in Pre-Columbian Amazonia.

The project started 10 years ago and involves archaeologists and soil scientists. Road constructions and exploitation in the region have rendered archaeological rescue work even more urgent.

The remains of more than 110 human settlements have been found, and most of them were built on the so-called Belterra Plateau, situated south of the present city of Santarém. Some of the sites have been investigated in more detail.

‘We found both large natural and small man-made depressions that were used for water storage. The man-made depressions, or ponds, have been enclosed by berms consisting of a mix of compact clay soil and household waste, such as pottery sherds. We have also been able to date a lot of material, including pottery and charcoal from hearths.’

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Contemporary water storage. Location: Bom Futuro. Credit: Per Stenborg

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Example of pottery figure typical of the pottery style (Santarém Phase pottery) that spread inland from ca. in 1300 AD. Credit: Per Stenborg

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It has long been known that people have populated areas along the rivers for thousands of years. What Stenborg and his colleagues have been able to add to this knowledge is that something happened around the fourteenth century.

‘The oldest inland settlements we have dated are from that time. There seems to have been some type of inland expansion in connection with the development of technologies for water management and agriculture.

Thus, the period A.D. 1300-1500 seems to have been characterised by major change in the prehistoric communities in this part of Amazonia, with significant population growth coupled with new types of water management and agriculture.

During the dry periods, the water supply is very limited in the inland rainforests, why water storage was necessary for permanent settlement. In addition, the soil tends to be relatively poor, yet fertile soil called terra preta, or Amazonian dark earth, has emerged near settlements. According to the archaeologists, this is another indication of the presence of a large community in the area.

‘We’ve found signs of a previously unknown magnitude of community organisation. The settlements seemed to have been part of a larger organisation. One indication of this is that the pottery we’ve found is stylistically consistent regardless of whether it is from settlements along the river or in the inland,’ says Stenborg.

The network of settlements in different environments not only gave people access to different types of natural resources, it also enabled them to farm the land for longer parts of the year. Since the river banks are flooded during the six-month rainy season, those areas are farmed during the dry season. In contrast, it was during the rainy periods that farming was possible in the inland areas.

Source: University of Gothenburg

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Hominins may have been food for carnivores 500,000 years ago

Posted on April 27, 2016 by No Author -

PLOS ONE—Tooth-marks on a 500,000-year-old hominin femur bone found in a Moroccan cave indicate that it was consumed by large carnivores, likely hyenas, according to a study* published April 27, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Camille Daujeard from the Muséum National D’Histoire Naturelle, France, and colleagues.

During the Middle Pleistocene, early humans likely competed for space and resources with large carnivores, who occupied many of the same areas. However, to date, little evidence for direct interaction between them in this period has been found. The authors of the present study examined the shaft of a femur from the skeleton of a 500,000-year-old hominin, found in the Moroccan cave “Grotte à Hominidés” cave near Casablanca, Morocco, and found evidence of consumption by large carnivores.

The authors’ examination of the bone fragment revealed various fractures and tooth marks indicative of carnivore chewing, including tooth pits as well as other scores and notches. These were clustered at the two ends of the femur, the softer parts of the bone being completely crushed. The marks were covered with sediment, suggesting that they were very old.

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Tooth-marks on a 500,000-year-old hominin femur bone found in a Moroccan cave indicate that it was consumed by large carnivores, likely hyenas, according to a study published April 27, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. Credit: C. Daujeard

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While the appearance of the marks indicated that they were most likely made by hyenas shortly after death, it was not possible to conclude whether the bone had been eaten as a result of predation on the hominin or had been scavenged soon after death. Nonetheless, this is the first evidence that humans were a resource for carnivores during the Middle Pleistocene in this part of Morocco, and contrasts with evidence from nearby sites that humans themselves hunted and ate carnivores. The authors suggest that depending on circumstances, hominins at this time could have both acted as hunter or scavenger, and been targeted as carrion or prey.

Camille Daujeard notes: “Although encounters and confrontations between archaic humans and large predators of this time period in North Africa must have been common, the discovery … is one of the few examples where hominin consumption by carnivores is proven.”

Source: PLOS ONE press release.

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*Daujeard C, Geraads D, Gallotti R, Lefèvre D, Mohib A, Raynal J-P, et al. (2016) Pleistocene Hominins as a Resource for Carnivores: A c. 500,000-Year-Old Human Femur Bearing Tooth-Marks in North Africa (Thomas Quarry I, Morocco). PLoS ONE 11(4): e0152284. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0152284

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Neandertals and Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens had different dietary strategies

Posted on April 27, 2016 by No Author -

PLOS ONE—When fluctuating climates in the Ice Age altered habitats, modern humans may have adapted their diets in a different way than Neandertals, according to a study published April 27, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sireen El Zaatari of the University of Tübingen, Germany, and colleagues.

The Neandertal lineage survived for hundreds of thousands of years despite the severe temperature fluctuations of the Ice Age. The reasons for their decline around 40 thousand years ago remain unclear. The authors of this study investigated the possible influence of dietary strategies using the fossilized molars of 52 Neandertals and Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens (modern humans). They analysed the type and degree of microwear on the teeth to attempt to draw conclusions about diet type and to establish a relationship with prevalent climactic conditions.

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This is an image of a fossilized human molar used in the study of dietary habits of Neandertals and Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens. Credit: Sireen El Zaatari

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They found that as the climate fluctuated and habitats altered, Neandertals may have adapted their diet to the resources that were most readily available, eating mainly meat when in open, cold steppe environments, and supplementing their diet with more plants, seeds, and nuts when in forested landscapes. Meanwhile, modern humans seemed to stick to their dietary strategy regardless of slight environmental changes and retained a relatively large proportion of plant-based foods in their diet. “To be able to do this, they may have developed tools to extract dietary resources from their environment”” says Sireen El Zaatari. The researchers concluded that Upper Paleolithic modern humans’ differing dietary strategies may have given them an advantage over the Neandertals.

The Neandertals may have maintained their opportunistic approach of eating whatever was available in their changing habitats over hundreds of thousands of years. However, modern humans seem to have invested more effort in accessing food resources and significantly changed their dietary strategies over a much shorter period of time, in conjunction with their development of tools, which may have given them an advantage over Neanderthals.

The European Neandertal and modern human individuals analysed in this study do not temporally overlap and thus would not inform us about direct dietary competition between these two groups. Nevertheless, if the behavioral differences detected in this study were already established at the time of contact between them, these differences might have contributed to the demise of the Neandertals and the survival of modern humans.

Source: PLOS ONE press release.

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*El Zaatari S, Grine FE, Ungar PS, Hublin J-J (2016) Neandertal versus Modern Human Dietary Responses to Climatic Fluctuations. PLoS ONE 11(4): e0153277. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153277

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Modern DNA reveals ancient male population explosions linked to migration and technology

Posted on April 25, 2016 by No Author -

WELLCOME TRUST SANGER INSTITUTE—The largest ever study* of global genetic variation in the human Y chromosome has uncovered the hidden history of men. Research published in Nature Genetics reveals explosions in male population numbers in five continents, occurring at times between 55 thousand and four thousand years ago.

The study, led by Dr Chris Tyler-Smith of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, analysed sequence differences between the Y chromosomes of more than 1200 men from 26 populations around the world using data generated by the 1000 Genomes Project.

The work involved 42 scientists from four continents.

Dr David Poznik, from Stanford University, California, first author on the paper, said: “We identified more than 60,000 positions where one DNA letter was replaced by another in a man with modern descendants, and we discovered thousands of more complex DNA variants. These data constitute a rich and publicly available resource for further genealogical, historical and forensic studies.”

Analysing the Y chromosomes of modern men can tell us about the lives of our ancestors. The Y chromosome is only passed from father to son and so is wholly linked to male characteristics and behaviours. The team used the data to build a tree of these 1200 Y chromosomes; it shows how they are all related to one another. As expected, they all descend from a single man who lived approximately 190,000 years ago.

The most intriguing and novel finding was that some parts of the tree were more like a bush than a tree, with many branches originating at the same point.

Dr Yali Xue, lead author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, explained: “This pattern tells us that there was an explosive increase in the number of men carrying a certain type of Y chromosome, within just a few generations. We only observed this phenomenon in males, and only in a few groups of men.”

The earliest explosive increases of male numbers occurred 50,000-55,000 years ago, across Asia and Europe, and 15,000 years ago in the Americas. There were also later expansions in sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe, South Asia and East Asia, at times between 4,000 and 8,000 years ago. The team believes the earlier population increases resulted from the first peopling by modern humans of vast continents, where plenty of resources were available.

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Chakazul, Wikimedia Commons

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The later expansions are more enigmatic.

Dr Chris Tyler-Smith, from the Sanger Institute, added: “The best explanation is that they may have resulted from advances in technology that could be controlled by small groups of men. Wheeled transport, metal working and organised warfare are all candidate explanations that can now be investigated further.”

All of the samples and data from the 1000 Genomes Project are freely available for use by other scientists and interested investigators.

Source: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute

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*Poznik GD et al. Punctuated bursts in human male demography inferred from 1,244 worldwide Y-chromosome sequences is published in Nature Genetics 25 April 2016 DOI: 10.1038/ng.3559

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Study of chimpanzees explores the early origins of human hand dexterity

Posted on April 22, 2016 by No Author -

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE—Chimpanzees use manipulative dexterity to evaluate and select figs, a vital resource when preferred foods are scarce, according to a new Dartmouth-led study just published by Interface Focus. The action resembles that of humans shopping for fruits, and the study demonstrates the foraging advantages of opposable fingers and careful manual prehension, or the act of grasping an object with precision. The findings shed new light on the ecological origins of hands with fine motor control, a trait that enabled our early human ancestors to manufacture and use stone tools. (A pdf of the study is available upon request. The paper will be available for free via open access once the embargo lifts, as the link is not currently live).

“The supreme dexterity of the human hand is unsurpassed among mammals, a fact that is often linked to early tool use,” said lead author Nathaniel J. Dominy, professor of anthropology and adjunct professor of biological sciences at Dartmouth. “A problem is that we know little about the selective pressures that favored the advanced manual skills of chimpanzees and other apes. These skills were the cognitive foundation for the origin of our extraordinary hands, a trait that made all the difference.”

For the study, Dominy and his colleagues observed the foraging behaviors of chimpanzees, black-and-white colobus monkeys, red colobus monkeys and red-tailed monkeys in Kibale National Park, Uganda. The primates depended on figs, and although ripe figs come in a range of colors, many stay green throughout development and every phase can be present on a single tree, making it difficult to discern solely by color, which figs are ripe. To determine if the green figs of Ficus sansibarica are edible, chimpanzees ascend trees and make a series of sensory assessments– they may look at the fig’s color, smell the fig, manually palpate or touch each fig (using the volar pad of the thumb and lateral side of the index finger) to assess the fruit’s elasticity and/or bite the fig to determine the stiffness of the fruit. Colobus monkeys do not have thumbs and evaluate the ripeness of figs by using their front teeth.

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A chimpanzee in Kibale National Park, Uganda, initiates a series of sensory assessments to evaluate the edibility of figs. Sensory assessment entailed manual palpation to discern softness (elastic deformation). Photo by Alain Houle.

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A chimpanzee in Kibale National Park, Uganda, initiates a series of sensory assessments to evaluate the edibility of figs. Sensory assessment entailed incisor evaluation to discern toughness (chewability). Photo by Alain Houle.

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The team examined the spectral, chemical and mechanical properties of figs, which included boring into individual figs to assess the elasticity of the fruit and extracting fig contents to estimate nutritional rewards such as sugar. They observed the non-selection, rejection and ingestion of individual figs, and collected specimens of figs that were: avoided; palpated and rejected; palpated, bitten and rejected; and edible for which less than 50 percent of the fruit was left. Chimpanzees also use their sense of smell to assess individual figs; however, the study was unequipped to capture olfactory volatiles. Based on the sensory data obtained, the team estimated the predictive power that sensory information may have on chimpanzees when estimating the ripeness of figs.

Palpating figs was about four times faster than detaching and then biting the fruit, suggesting that chimpanzees may have a substantial foraging advantage over birds and monkeys, which rely on visual and oral information. The study provides new insight into how chimpanzees exhibit advanced visuomotor control during the foraging process and more broadly, on the evolution of skilled forelimb movements.

Source: Dartmouth College news release.

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Royal 17th century wardrobe found in the Wadden Sea

Posted on April 21, 2016 by No Author -

UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM—‘Rarely, if ever, has such a big discovery been made in a maritime context’, says Maarten van Bommel, Professor of Conservation Science and chair of the section Restoration and Conservation of Cultural Heritage at the UvA. The items, which were found at the wreck of a 17th-century ship in the Wadden Sea near Texel, include a very luxurious gown that has remained remarkably well preserved. This gown serves as the showpiece of the temporary exhibition ‘Garde Robe’, which has opened at the museum, Kaap Skil.

The gown, which due to its rich detail is believed to have belonged to ‘high nobility, possibly even royalty’, is part of an extensive wardrobe. Among other articles, the site also yielded a cloak, stockings and silk and satin bodices decorated with large quantities of gold and silver thread. In addition to textiles, divers also found practical items like pottery from Italy, a gilded silver chalice and scents from Greece or Turkey. In addition, a number of book covers emerged from the depths that bear the coat of arms of the English Royal House of Stuart.

International importance

Experts from the Rijksmuseum, the University of Amsterdam and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE), consider the textiles one of Europe’s most important clothing finds ever. Their discovery, in combination with other objects, makes this one of the foremost and most appealing finds in the history of Dutch archaeology. Because in a ship everything is preserved together – as if in a time capsule – this discovery can give great insight into the life and work of those on board and the trade relations and political situation of the time.

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One of the wardrobe items found at the site of the shipwreck. Credit Kaap Skil

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Who wore it?

Archival research revealed that the wardrobe belonged to the royal court of the English queen Henrietta Maria. In March 1642 the queen was travelling to the Netherlands on a secret mission when one of her baggage ships sunk in the Wadden Sea. This discovery was made by cultural historians Helmer Helmers from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and Nadine Akkerman from Leiden University. It probably belonged to Jean Kerr, Countess of Roxburghe (c. 1585-1643), lady-in-waiting and confidante to Queen Henrietta Maria (1609-1669). Jean was one of two ladies-in-waiting whose clothes went down with the ship, but the style and size of the gown indicates strongly that it belonged to Kerr, the elder of the two.

Elizabeth Stuart

Cultural historians Nadine Akkerman and Helmer Helmers are experts on the British Royal House of Stuart. Their findings are based on a letter written by Elizabeth Stuart (1596-1662), the Stuart princess who found refuge in The Hague after being exiled from the Kingdom of Bohemia. In a letter to the English diplomat Sir Thomas Roe, dated 17 March 1642, Elizabeth describes how her sister-in-law lost a baggage ship during the crossing. In addition to the clothing of two ladies-in-waiting and their maids, the queen herself lost the ‘vessels’ from her private chapel in the shipwreck.

A secret mission

The official story behind Henrietta Maria’s trip to the Dutch Republic was one of royal connections: she was delivering her 11-year old daughter Mary to the court of William II, Prince of Orange and future stadtholder, whom the girl had married the previous year. This was only a ruse, however: her real mission was to sell the crown jewels and use the proceeds to buy weapons. These were essential for King Charles I to take on Parliament in the English Civil War. According to Akkerman and Helmers, the find at Texel represents a tangible reminder of the strong Dutch involvement in this conflict.

Winter Queen

Akkerman, assistant professor of Early Modern English Literature at Leiden University, and Helmers, assistant professor of Early Modern Dutch Literature and Culture at the UvA, were able to solve the mystery of the unknown gown owner reasonably quickly. Akkerman: ‘Once Helmer alerted me to the find, it took us about five minutes to unearth the relevant letter, as I remembered transcribing and deciphering it in 2006. We continue to find more references.’

Akkerman is the editor of the Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, while Helmers is the author of The Royalist Republic, on Anglo-Dutch relations in this period.

Unnecessary speculation

The mystery and speculation in the Dutch press surrounding the origin of the wardrobe were unnecessary. With the discovery of the family crest, the evidence quickly started pointing towards the Stuarts. Helmers: ‘It is a pity we weren’t consulted earlier – the puzzle would have been solved much earlier. The archaeological experts have primarily focused on the material side. Of course this is important, but the historical texts also tell a thrilling story.’

Shipwrecks of the Texel Roadstead

Off the coast of Texel, at Oudeschild, lie hundreds of shipwrecks, many from the Golden Age. Waiting for cargo or a favorable wind, they went down in storms and severe weather. However, their contents were well preserved under the sand. Due to the changing sea currents, the wrecks sometimes come loose, often threatening their cargo. Various organizations responsible for preserving these sites are currently investigating how best to deal with these processes. They are working together in this context with the Texel Diving Club, which called attention to this find.

Exhibition opening

The exhibition Garde Robe was officially opened on Thursday, 14 April, on behalf of all parties involved, by Jack van der Hoek, member of the Provincial Executive of North Holland. The spectacular opening ceremony was directed by Studio Aziz Bekkaoui. During the opening, well-known UvA archaeologist Prof. Jerzy Gawronski admitted that it was a huge surprise to him that the seabed around Texel is home to such treasures. Provincial Executive member Jack van der Hoek said he saw it as a great gift, which also entails a great responsibility.

Museum Kaap Skil will be showing a selection of the find to the public for a month – until Monday, 16 May 2016. After that, the objects will be transferred to Huis van Hilde (Hilde’s House), the archaeology information centre of the Province of North Holland, where the research will be conducted. The University of Amsterdam, RCE and the Rijksmuseum will be closely involved in this research. The Province of North Holland, which acquired ownership of the find, is in charge of the investigation. Eventually, the find will be exhibited in museum Kaap Skil on Texel.

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

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Study of chimpanzees explores the early origins of human hand dexterity

Royal 17th century wardrobe found in the Wadden Sea

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