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First discovered and excavated in the 1960’s by British archaeologist James Mellaart, the world-famous 9,000-year-old Neolithic site of Catälhöyuk in Central Anatolia, Turkey, has provided a unique window on the lives of humans at the transition from hunter-gatherer to settled agriculture societies. Among the spectacular finds was a mural or wall-painting dated to about 6600 BCE and described by its discoverer and others as depicting a volcanic eruption. Arguably regarded as the first map or graphical representation of a landscape, it featured “a rendering of a mountain with two peaks with the cell-like patterns representing a plan view of a village with a general layout of the houses similar to that of Catälhöyuk and other nearby Neolithic settlements”……”with the summit region showing ‘‘falling volcanic ‘bombs’ or large semiliquid lava.’’*

This description or interpretation has been contested, however, as critics have maintained that there has been little or no geologic evidence for an explosive volcanic eruption in the area contemporaneous with the age of the site, and other scholars have descibed the painting as representing a “leopard skin with its extremities cut off”.*

Now, new volcanic rock dating suggests the mural date may have overlapped with the date of an eruption from the nearby Hasan Dagi volcano. Led by Axel Schmitt from the University of California Los Angeles and colleagues from other institutions, an international team of scientists analyzed rocks from the nearby Hasan Dagi volcano in order to determine whether it was the volcano depicted in the mural from ~6600 BC. To determine if Hasan Dagi was active during that time, scientists collected and analyzed volcanic rock samples from the summit and flanks of the Hasan Dagi volcano using (U-Th)/He zircon geochronology. This resulted in the first radiometric ages for a Holocene volcanic eruption in the area. The ages were then compared to the archaeological date of the mural.

They found that volcanic rock textures and ages support the interpretation that residents of Çatalhöyük may have recorded an explosive eruption of Hasan Dagi volcano. The dating of the volcanic rock indicated an eruption around 6900 BC, which closely overlaps with the time the mural was estimated to have been painted in Çatalhöyük. The overlapping timeframes thus indicate humans in the region may have witnessed this eruption.

Says Schmitt, “We tested the hypothesis that the Çatalhöyük mural depicts a volcanic eruption and discovered a geological record consistent with this hypothesis. Our work also demonstrates that Hasan Dagi volcano has potential for future eruptions.”

The sudy results are published in detail in the January 8, 2014, open access journal PLOS ONE. 

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Excavations at Çatalhöyük first began under James Mellaart in 1958 and were later renewed under Ian Hodder in 1993. Ziggurat, Wikimedia Commons

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*Schmitt AK, Danišík M, Aydar E, Şen E, Ulusoy İ, et al. (2014) Identifying the Volcanic Eruption Depicted in a Neolithic Painting at Çatalhöyük, Central Anatolia, Turkey. PLoS ONE 9(1): e84711. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0084711

Partial support for this study comes from NSF EAR 1029193 “Facility Support: The UCLA National Ion Microprobe”. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. No additional external funding was received for this study. 

Cover Photo, Top Left: The Hasan Dagi volcano. Credit: Janet C. Harvey

Source: Adaped and edited from a press release for the Public Library of Science and relevant excerpts from the detailed study cited above.

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An Oxford University study has concluded that our ancient ancestors who lived in East Africa between 2.4 million-1.4 million years ago survived mainly on a diet of tiger nuts. Tiger nuts are edible grass bulbs still eaten in parts of the world today. The study published in the journal, PLOS ONE, also suggests that these early hominins may have sought additional nourishment from fruits and invertebrates, like worms and grasshoppers.

Study author Dr Gabriele Macho examined the diet of Paranthropus boisei, nicknamed “Nutcracker Man” because of his big flat molar teeth and powerful jaws, through studying modern-day baboons in Kenya. Her findings help to explain a puzzle that has vexed archaeologists for 50 years.

Scholars have debated why this early human relative had such strong jaws, indicating a diet of hard foods like nuts, yet their teeth seemed to be made for consuming soft foods. Damage to the tooth enamel also indicated they had come into contact with an abrasive substance. Previous research using stable isotope analyses suggests the diet of these homimins was largely comprised of C4 plants like grasses and sedges. However, a debate has raged over whether such high-fibre foods could ever be of sufficiently high quality for a large-brained, medium-sized hominin.

Dr Macho’s study finds that baboons today eat large quantities of C4 tiger nuts, and this food would have contained sufficiently high amounts of minerals, vitamins, and the fatty acids that would have been particularly important for the hominin brain. Her finding is grounded in existing data that details the diet of year-old baboons in Amboseli National Park in Kenya – a similar environment to that once inhabited by Paranthropus boisei. Dr Macho’s study is based on the assumption that baboons intuitively select food according to their needs. She concludes that the nutritional demands of a hominin would have been quite similar.

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Landscape at the Amboseli National Park (with baboons). The landscape inhabited by Paranthropus boisei was very similar. Image courtesy Gabriele Macho.

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Dr Macho modified the findings of the previous study on baboons by Stuart Altmann (1998) on how long it took the year-old baboons to dig up tiger nuts and feed on various C4 sources. She calculated the likely time taken by hominins, suggesting that it would be at least twice that of the yearling baboons once their superior manual dexterity was taken into account. Dr Macho also factored in the likely calorie intake that would be needed by a big-brained human relative.

Tiger nuts, which are rich in starches, are highly abrasive in an unheated state. Dr Macho suggests that hominins’ teeth suffered abrasion and wear and tear due to these starches. The study finds that baboons’ teeth have similar marks giving clues about their pattern of consumption.

In order to digest the tiger nuts and allow the enzymes in the saliva to break down the starches, the hominins would need to chew the tiger nuts for a long time. All this chewing put considerable strain on the jaws and teeth, which explains why “Nutcracker Man” had such a distinctive cranial anatomy.

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Skull of ‘Nutcracker Man’ or Paranthropus boisei. This image is of Olduvai Hominid 5 (OH 5), the most famous of the early human fossils found at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Image courtesy Donald C Johanson.

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Palate and maxillary teeth of Paranthropus boisei (OH 5). Image courtesy Donald C Johanson.

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The Oxford study calculates a hominin could extract sufficient nutrients from a tiger nut- based diet, i.e. around 10,000 kilojoules or 2,000 calories a day – or 80% of their required daily calorie intake, in two and half to three hours. This fits comfortably within the foraging time of five to six hours per day typical for a large-bodied primate.

Dr Macho, from the School of Archaeology at Oxford University, said: ‘I believe that the theory – that “Nutcracker Man” lived on large amounts of tiger nuts– helps settle the debate about what our early human ancestor ate. On the basis of recent isotope results, these hominins appear to have survived on a diet of C4 foods, which suggests grasses and sedges. Yet these are not high quality foods. What this research tells us is that hominins were selective about the part of the grass that they ate, choosing the grass bulbs at the base of the grass blade as the mainstay of their diet.

‘Tiger nuts, still sold in health food shops as well as being widely used for grinding down and baking in many countries, would be relatively easy to find. They also provided a good source of nourishment for a medium-sized hominin with a large brain. This is why these hominins were able to survive for around one million years because they could successfully forage – even through periods of climatic change.’

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Source: University of Oxford Press Release

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A new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), may strengthen the argument for an evolutionary link between Ardipithecus ramidus (nicknamed ‘Ardi’ for short), a 4.4 million-year-old hominoid species that featured a brain about the size of a chimpanzee but locomotor behavior that may have included both walking upright on the ground and a life in the trees, and humans. A hominoid is a type of animal belonging to the superfamily Hominoidea, consisting of both apes and humans.

Ardipithecus ramidus, now long extinct, is the biological species name given to fossils first discovered in 1992 by a research team led by Tim White.  Exploring the Afar Depression in the Middle Awash river valley of Ethiopia, they found seventeen fragments including skull, mandible, teeth and arm bones. Later, additional fragments were recovered in 1994. The pelvis remains of Ardi, which were found in a crushed state, were analyzed and interpreted to be shorter and broader than an ape’s — more like that of a human or Australopithecus, indicating that she was bipedal, able to walk upright. White and colleagues initially classified it as belonging to Australopithecus, a more human-like genus thought to be ancestral to humans, but later renamed the fossil finds under a new genus, Ardipithecus. Then, between 1999 and 2003, another team led by Sileshi Semaw discovered fossils of nine A. ramidus individuals at As Duma in the Gona Western Margin of Ethiopia’s Afar Region. These fossils were dated to between 4.35 and 4.45 million years old. Questions surrounding how this species is related to human ancestors have been long debated, with many scholars suggesting it represents evidence of homoplasy, or independent evolution of similar features in species of different lineages. In the case of Ardi, the homoplasy adherents have pointed out that certain aspects of the foot and pelvis which are strongly indicative of arboreal locomotion (life in the trees, like other primates), suggest that this species may instead “exemplify parallel evolution of human-like traits among apes around the time of the chimpanzee-human split”.*

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Ardipithecus ramidus („Ardi“), complete skeleton. Own drawn remake of p.36, “Science” of 2nd October 2009. Tobias Fluegel, Wikimedia Commons

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 A map with the fossil sites of the earliest hominids and hominoids, from 35.8 M BP until 3.3 M BP.

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Now, an international team of scientists, including study authors William H. Kimbel of Arizona State University and Tim D. White of the University of California, Berkely, report that key morphological aspects of the base of the Ardi skull (the basicranium) indicates affinities to that of the Australopithecines and early Homo, supporting the hypothesis that Ardi had a closer relationship to humans than the homoplasy supporters suggest. Report the study authors:

“Our investigation of the basicranium shows that Ar. ramidus shares with Australopithecus and Homo a relatively short, broad central cranial base and related modifications of the tympanic, petrous, and basioccipital elements. These similarities support the proposed relationship of Ar. ramidus to Australopithecus + Homo. Reorganization of the central basicranium is among the earliest morphological attributes of this group.”*

The researchers came to this conclusion after analyzing the length and breadth of the external cranial base of the skull, including the temporal bone , of the best-preserved basicranial specimen of Ardi and similar samples from Australopithecines, chimpanzees, bonobos, and modern humans.

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Ardipithecus cranium image. Michael Keesey, Wikimedia Commons 

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Other key researchers and study authors included Gen Suwa of the University of Tokyo, Berhane Asfaw of the Rift Valley Research Service, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Yoel Rak of Tel Aviv University and Arizona State University.

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*Article #13-22639: “Ardipithecus ramidus and the evolution of the human cranial base,” by William H. Kimbel et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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University of Cincinnati archaeologists are turning up discoveries in the famed Roman city of Pompeii that are wiping out the historic perceptions of how the Romans dined, with the rich enjoying delicacies such as flamingos and the poor scrounging for soup or gruel.

Steven Ellis, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics, will present these discoveries on Jan. 4, at the joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and American Philological Association (APA) in Chicago.

UC teams of archaeologists have spent more than a decade at two city blocks within a non-elite district in the Roman city of Pompeii, which was buried under a volcano in 79 AD. The excavations are uncovering the earlier use of buildings that would have dated back to the 6th century. 

Ellis says the excavation is producing a complete archaeological analysis of homes, shops and businesses at a forgotten area inside one of the busiest gates of Pompeii, the Porta Stabia. 

The area covers 10 separate building plots and a total of 20 shop fronts, most of which served food and drink. The waste that was examined included collections from drains as well as 10 latrines and cesspits, which yielded mineralized and charred food waste coming from kitchens and excrement. Ellis says among the discoveries in the drains was an abundance of the remains of fully-processed foods, especially grains.

“The material from the drains revealed a range and quantity of materials to suggest a rather clear socio-economic distinction between the activities and consumption habits of each property, which were otherwise indistinguishable hospitality businesses,” says Ellis. Findings revealed foods that would have been inexpensive and widely available, such as grains, fruits, nuts, olives, lentils, local fish and chicken eggs, as well as minimal cuts of more expensive meat and salted fish from Spain. Waste from neighboring drains would also turn up less of a variety of foods, revealing a socioeconomic distinction between neighbors.

A drain from a central property revealed a richer variety of foods as well as imports from outside Italy, such as shellfish, sea urchin and even delicacies including the butchered leg joint of a giraffe. 

“That the bone represents the height of exotic food is underscored by the fact that this is thought to be the only giraffe bone ever recorded from an archaeological excavation in Roman Italy,” says Ellis. “How part of the animal, butchered, came to be a kitchen scrap in a seemingly standard Pompeian restaurant not only speaks to long-distance trade in exotic and wild animals, but also something of the richness, variety and range of a non-elite diet.”

Deposits also included exotic and imported spices, some from as far away as Indonesia.

Ellis adds that one of the deposits dates as far back as the 4th century, which he says is a particularly valuable discovery, since few other ritual deposits survived from that early stage in the development of Pompeii.

“The ultimate aim of our research is to reveal the structural and social relationships over time between working-class Pompeian households, as well as to determine the role that sub-elites played in the shaping of the city, and to register their response to city-and Mediterranean-wide historical, political and economic developments. However, one of the larger datasets and themes of our research has been diet and the infrastructure of food consumption and food ways,” says Ellis.

He adds that as a result of the discoveries, “The traditional vision of some mass of hapless lemmings – scrounging for whatever they can pinch from the side of a street, or huddled around a bowl of gruel – needs to be replaced by a higher fare and standard of living, at least for the urbanites in Pompeii.”

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Detail of excavated features in the neighborhood under excavation and study. Courtesy UC Department of Classics 
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Contributing team leaders on the project who have focused on diet and food ways are Michael MacKinnon, a professor at the University of Winnipeg; Mark Robinson, professor at Oxford University; Jennifer Robinson, also of Oxford University; Emily Holt, professor at Oberlin College and Professor Andrew Fairbairn of the University of Queensland.

Funding for the research was supported by the UC Department of Classics Louise Taft Semple Fund, with generous additional support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Geographic Society, the Loeb Classical Library Foundation and several private benefactors.

Ellis’ presentation, “Explorations into the Complexities of Foodways of Non-elite Roman Urbanites,” will be presented at the Presidential Plenary Session focusing on food and drink. The Presidential Plenary Session is considered one of the highlights of the conference.

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Source: Dawn Fuller, University of Cincinnati Press Release

All images courtesy UC Department of Classics and Steven Ellis

Cover Photo, Top Left: Overview of the neighborhood of Pompeii under excavation by the University of Cincinnati. 

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December 31st, 2013

10 Coolest Archaeology Discoveries of 2013

Archaeologists dig through the faint traces of the past to learn more about human history. And 2013 was a big year for new archaeology finds. From royal tombs to the mysterious vanished inhabitants of Europe, here are some of the strangest and most exciting archaeology finds of the year. (Live Science)

Violent death in the bogs of Ireland

The headless body of Old Croghan Man was found preserved in the bog in 2003. He had died sometime between 362BC and 175BC. Slideshow (BBC News)

New Theory: Hunter-Gatherers Domesticated Dogs From Gray Wolves

Man’s best friends may have started off as European gray wolves, according to scientists whose research is challenging earlier thinking around where and why dogs became domestic animals. The finding, detailed in this week’s issue of the journal Science, challenges past research that had placed dog domestication in East Asia or the Middle East and that had linked the phenomena to the rise of agriculture. (National Geographic)

Massacre in the Well – A 1200 Year Old Murder Mystery

French archaeologists recently completed five months of excavations at the town of Entrains-sur-Nohain in Burgundy as part of a private development in the area. What they did not expect to find in this routine excavation of a Gallo-Roman site was the remains of a mass grave – witness to the massacre of a civilian population from over 1000 years ago. (Past Horizons)

Centuries Before China’s ‘Great Wall,’ There Was Another

The Great Wall of China, built more than 2,000 years ago, stands as one of the monumental feats of ancient engineering. Stretching thousands of miles, it protected the newly unified country from foreign invaders. But before the Great Wall, warring Chinese dynasties built many other walls for protection. An American archaeologist recently began surveying one of the biggest. (NPR)

A team of Israeli scientists have reported the discovery of a hominin (early human) occupation site near Nesher Ramla, Israel. The site, according to archaeologist Yossi Zaidner of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa and colleagues, presents evidence for human occupation or use during Middle Paleolithic times (about 300,000 to 40 – 50,000 years ago).

Unearthed were numerous finds that comprised an 8-meter deep sequence of “rich and well-preserved lithic [worked stone tool artifacts] and faunal assemblages [animal and early human bones], combustion features [features evidencing use or presence of fire], hundreds of manuports [natural objects moved from their original locations possibly by human agency] and ochre.”* Ochre, an iron oxide pigment, was often used for a variety of purposes by prehistoric humans, including the creation of wall paintings.

Using the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating technique, the researchers were able to place habitation or use of the site during the MIS (Marine Isotope Stage) 6-5, or a date range between about 190,000 and 74,000 years ago. Although the type of human was not identified as yet in their report, this time period witnessed activities of both Neanderthals and early modern humans. The lithic artifacts were of the Mousterian tradition, and included Levallois cores, flakes, points, and side-scrapers. They also discovered a “vertebral column in anatomic articulation” and “probable cutmarks observed in the field on an aurochs-sized long bone shaft fragment”.* The auroch is a large, extinct type of wild cattle that inhabited Europe, Asia and North Africa. 

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Above: Typical example of a Levallois point, found in Beuzeville, Eure, France. Didier Descouens, Wikimedia Commons

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Summarizes Zaidner, et al.: “The site, found within a karst depression at Nesher Ramla, Israel, provides novel evidence for Middle Paleolithic lifeways in an environmental and depositional setting that is previously undocumented in the southern Levant. The carbonate bedrock in the area is characterized by surface depressions formed by gravitational sagging of the rock into underlying karst voids.”* 

Karst features such as depressions and caves are naturally caused by water action over time with carbonate rock, such as limestone and dolomite. Israel features a number of such caves, some of which have revealed evidence of human habitation by Neanderthals and other early human species. Kebara cave near Zikhron Ya’akov, for example, has yielded fossilized 60,000-year-old remains of a Neanderthal and lithic artifacts; and the Tabun Cave, near Mount Carmel, contained a Neanderthal-type female dated to about 120,000 years ago.  

The details of the report, currently in press, are documented in the Journal of Human Evolution.  

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* A series of Mousterian occupations in a new type of site: The Nesher Ramla karst depression, Israel

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The most complete sequence to date of the Neanderthal genome, using DNA extracted from a woman’s toe bone that dates back 50,000 years, reveals a long history of interbreeding among at least four different types of early humans living in Europe and Asia at that time, according to a University of California, Berkeley, team of scientists.

Population geneticist Montgomery Slatkin, graduate student Fernando Racimo and post-doctoral student Flora Jay were part of an international team of anthropologists and geneticists who generated a high-quality sequence of the Neanderthal genome and compared it with the genomes of modern humans and a recently recognized group of early humans called Denisovans.

The comparison shows that Neanderthals and Denisovans are very closely related, and that their common ancestor split off from the ancestors of modern humans about 400,000 years ago. Neanderthals and Denisovans split about 300,000 years ago.

Though Denisovans and Neanderthals eventually died out, they left behind bits of their genetic heritage because they occasionally interbred with modern humans. The research team estimates that between 1.5 and 2.1 percent of the genomes of modern non-Africans can be traced to Neantherthals.

Denisovans also left genetic traces in modern humans, though only in some Oceanic and Asian populations. The genomes of Australian aborigines, New Guineans and some Pacific Islanders are about 6 percent Denisovan genes, according to earlier studies. The new analysis finds that the genomes of Han Chinese and other mainland Asian populations, as well as of native Americans, contain about 0.2 percent Denisovan genes.

The genome comparisons also show that Denisovans interbred with a mysterious fourth group of early humans also living in Eurasia at the time. That group had split from the others more than a million years ago, and may have been the group of human ancestors known as Homo erectus, the fossils of which indicate their presence in Europe and Asia a million or more years ago.

“The paper really shows that the history of humans and hominins during this period was very complicated,” said Slatkin, a UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology. “There was a lot of interbreeding that we know about and probably other interbreeding we haven’t yet discovered.”

In another analysis, Jay discovered that the Neanderthal woman whose toe bone provided the DNA was highly inbred. The woman’s genome indicates that she was the daughter of a very closely related mother and father who either were half-siblings who shared the same mother, an uncle and niece or aunt and nephew, a grandparent and grandchild, or double first-cousins (the offspring of two siblings who married siblings).

Further analyses suggest that the population sizes of Neanderthals and Denisovans were small and that inbreeding may have been more common in Neanderthal groups than in modern populations.

As part of the new study, Racimo was able to identify at least 87 specific genes in modern humans that are significantly different from related genes in Neanderthals and Denisovans, and that may hold clues to the behavioral differences distinguishing us from early human populations that died out.

“There is no gene we can point to and say, ‘This accounts for language or some other unique feature of modern humans,'” Slatkin said. “But from this list of genes, we will learn something about the changes that occurred on the human lineage, though those changes will probably be very subtle.”

According to Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, the list of genes “is a catalog of genetic features that sets all modern humans apart from all other organisms, living or extinct. I believe that in it hide some of the things that made the enormous expansion of human populations and human culture and technology in the last 100,000 years possible”.

The Pääbo group last year produced a high-quality Denisovan genome based on DNA from a pinky finger bone discovered in 2008 in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Southern Siberia. That bone is from a young woman who lived about 40,000 years ago. The Neanderthal toe bone was found in the same cave in 2010, though in a deeper layer of sediment that is thought to be about 10,000-20,000 years older. The cave also contains modern human artifacts, meaning that at least three groups of early humans occupied the cave at different times. The Pääbo group developed new techniques to extract DNA from these old bones.

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This is the Denisova Cave entrance, located in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, Russia. The cave was inhabitated at various times by three different groups of early humans: Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans. Credit: Copyright Bence Viola

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Slatkin noted that no one is sure how long the various now-extinct groups lasted, but there is evidence that Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted in Europe and Asia for at least 30,000 years. Interbreeding was infrequent, though how infrequent is unclear given the genomic information available today.

“We don’t know if interbreeding took place once, where a group of Neanderthals got mixed in with modern humans, and it didn’t happen again, or whether groups lived side by side, and there was interbreeding over a prolonged period,” he said.

The genome analysis is published in the Dec. 19 issue of the journal Nature. Slatkin, Racimo and Jay are members of a large team led by former UC Berkeley post-doc Svante Pääbo, who is now at the Max Planck Institute.

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Source: Edited and adapted from a University of California – Berkeley  press release. 

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December 17th, 2013

Cat Domestication in China 5,300 Years Ago

A study conducted by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has produced the first direct evidence for the processes of cat domestication. Led by Yaowu Hu, he and his colleagues analyzed eight bones from at least two wild cats excavated from the site of the ancient Chinese village of Quanhucun, using radiocarbon dating and isotopic analyses of carbon and nitrogen traces in the bones of the cats. The analysis showed that the cats were preying on animals that lived on farmed millet — probably rodents. Archaeological evidence indicated that the village farmers had problems with rodents in the grain stores. In essence, the cats and the villagers had developed a kind of symbiotic relationship. (Popular Archaeology)

Ancient Pig-Shaped Baby Bottle Found

Italian archaeologists have discovered an ancient terracotta pig which worked as a toy as well as a modern-day baby bottle. Known as guttus, the unique vessel dates back about 2,400 years, when the “heel” of Italy was inhabited by the Messapian people, a tribal group who migrated from Illyria (a region in the western part of the Balkan peninsula) around 1000 B.C. (Discovery News)

Yes, Neanderthals Buried Their Dead, Say Researchers

An international team of scientists have announced new evidence supporting the long-debated hypothesis that Neanderthals, a now extinct ancient human cousin species that lived more than 30-40,000 years ago, intentionally buried their dead. (Popular Archaeology)

Mummy Mystery: Multiple Tombs Hidden in Egypt’s Valley of Kings

Multiple tombs lay hidden in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, where royalty were buried more than 3,000 years ago, awaiting discovery, say researchers working on the most extensive exploration of the area in nearly a century. The hidden treasure may include several small tombs, with the possibility of a big-time tomb holding a royal individual, the archaeologists say.  (Live Science)

Storms could reveal new archaeological sites in Scotland

The recent storms that hit the Scottish coastline could reveal important new archaeological sites, according to Fife scientists. St Andrews University archaeologists are appealing to the public to help find sites that have been uncovered by the storms. They also hoping people contact them to record local sites that have been damaged by the recent bad weather. (BBC News)

An international team of scientists have announced new evidence supporting the long-debated hypothesis that Neanderthals, a now extinct ancient human cousin species that lived more than 30-40,000 years ago, intentionally buried their dead.

Led by William Rendu and colleagues of the Center for International Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, New York City, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Bordeaux in France and Archéosphère, a private research firm, they analyzed results of excavations Rendu and an excavation team conducted at the bouffia Bonneval, La Chapelle-aux-Saints cave system site, in southwestern France, in 2011 and 2012, including the results of an excavation conducted there over 100 years ago. The site is famous for the discovery in 1908 of a nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton with evidence that has been interpreted to suggest that the skeleton was intentionally buried by other Neanderthals. That interpretation, however, has been historically challenged by many scholars.  

Now, through the renewed excavations, the scientists found the remains of an additional adult and two youth or children and additional elements of the 1908 skeleton find, along with bones of reindeer and bison and numerous lithic tools of the type usually associated with Neanderthals. They also conducted further study of the geological context of the initial 1908 finds and that of the new finds. They determined that the pit or geological depression where the original skeleton was found in 1908 was not a natural feature of the cave floor, and that it best fit the hypothesis that it had “anthropic origins” (created by humans).

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The bouffia Bonneval at La Chapelle-aux-Saints and its Neanderthal burial pit. Image courtesy Cédric Beauval.

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Moreover, their examination of the reindeer and bovid (bison) remains associated within the same time and spatial context as the Neanderthal remains indicated a significant difference in their relative condition. In contrast to the Neanderthal, the reindeer and bovid bones exhibited clear deterioration or wear due to climatic, mechanical, and carnivore activity.  

Combined with the geological analysis, the researchers came to a clear conclusion.

As Rendu, et al., write in their report: 

The results of the comparative taphonomic analysis of the human and faunal materials demonstrate that the LCS1 Neandertal [1908 skeleton find] corpse was rapidly interred and protected from the post-depositional modifications experienced by the faunal remains. The existence of an artificially modified pit and the rapid burial of the body constitute convincing criteria for establishing purposeful burial during the Middle Paleolithic of Western Europe.*

In short, they say, the debatable hypothesis has been strengthened: Neanderthals buried their dead.

Adds Rendu, “While we cannot know if this practice was part of a ritual or merely pragmatic, the discovery reduces the behavioral distance between them and us.”

The detailed report has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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*Article #13-16780: “Evidence supporting an intentional Neandertal burial at La Chapelle-aux-Saints,” by William Rendu et al.

Cover Photo, Top Left: Homo neanderthalensis, State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt / State Museum of Prehistory Halle, Wikimedia Commons

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In 2011, a team led by Fredrick Manthi from the West Turkana Paleontology Project of the National Museums of Kenya discovered a well-preserved hominin (early human ancestor) hand bone from the site of Kaitio, located in northern Kenya west of Lake Turkana. 

Any hominin fossil find would be considered a rarity when compared to the abundance of finds from other ancient animals. But this fossil was rarer still, for two reasons. First, it was a type of bone (the third metacarpal in the hand) that, along with other distinct anatomical features, allowed humans, in contrast to other primates, the ability to make tools and perform other manipulative functions that are unique to humans. Second, it was dated to about 1.42 million years ago. It constitutes the earliest evidence of a modern human-like hand, indicating that this anatomical feature existed more than half a million years earlier than previously known.

Researchers suspect the bone belonged to the early human species, Homo erectus, a human species that existed between 1.8 million and 143,000 years ago. It is considered the first human species to go global — geographically, Home erectus fossil remains have been found in East Africa, Georgia, India, Sri Lanka, China and Java. The bone was found near sites where the earliest Acheulian tools have appeared. Acheulian tools are ancient, shaped stone tools that include stone hand axes more than 1.6 million years old. They are most often associated with the presence of Homo erectus.

“What makes this bone so distinct,” says Carol Ward, professor of pathology and anatomical sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia and lead author of the study, “is the presence of a styloid process, or projection of bone, at the end that connects to the wrist. Until now, this styloid process has been found only in us, Neandertals and other archaic humans” whose remains have been dated to much later times. 

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The styloid process is a projection of bone. Ward and her team found a styloid process at the end of a hand/wrist bone more than 1.42 million years old, indicating this anatomical feature existed more than half a million years earlier than previously known. By explanation, above, Australopithecus is an early hominin that is generally thought to be ancestral to, and predates, the Homo genus, which contains the earliest species of the human line. Credit: University of Missouri

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Image of the fossil third metacarpal bone shown in its position on the human hand, connecting the wrist with the middle finger. The styloid process allows the hand to lock into the wrist bones, giving humans the ability to apply greater amounts of pressure to the hand. This allows humans to make and use tools. Credit: University of Missouri

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“The styloid process reflects an increased dexterity that allowed early human species to use powerful yet precise grips when manipulating objects. This was something that their predecessors couldn’t do as well due to the lack of this styloid process and its associated anatomy,” Ward said. “With this discovery, we are closing the gap on the evolutionary history of the human hand. This may not be the first appearance of the modern human hand, but we believe that it is close to the origin, given that we do not see this anatomy in any human fossils older than 1.8 million years. Our specialized, dexterous hands have been with us for most of the evolutionary history of our genus, Homo. They are – and have been for almost 1.5 million years – fundamental to our survival.”

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science this week. Members of Ward’s team who helped discover and analyze the bone include: Matthew Tocheri, National Museum of Natural History in the Smithsonian Institution; J. Michael Plavcan, University of Arkansas; Francis Brown, University of Utah; and Fredrick Manthi, National Museums of Kenya.

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Source: Adapted and edited from a University of Missouri-Columbia press release.

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Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about, including the special Holiday Discount offer.  AND MORE:

On the go? Purchase the current issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine for your Kindle, iPad or iPhone.

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

Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email [email protected] and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com. 

A three-year-old excavation at the graveyard of the Abbey of St. Peter in Lucca, Italy, is yielding something more than archaeologists initially expected, and they’re not just talking about bones and other grave features and artifacts. While excavating, they stumbled upon a mass grave of human remains that contain evidence of an ancient cholera outbreak. 

Led by Giuseppe Vercellotti and Clark Larson from Ohio State University and Hendrik Poinar from McMaster University, the researchers at the site have collected samples of ancient DNA from both humans and bacteria, hoping to find answers to questions about how past epidemics, such as the bubonic plague, developed, spread and devastated historic human populations in Europe. Moreover, they hope that making comparisons to modern bacterial genomes can shed light on how pathogens evolved under a variety of conditions, such as war and famine.  

The Abbey of St. Peter was situated along an early pilgrimage route, and was a congregational point for knights, clerics, monks and peasants. The researchers are comparing fossils and genes from a variety of social classes and time periods to build a picture of how people lived and died in Middle Age Europe, and beyond. One of their research questions centers around why the bacterial strain for bubonic plague is much less virulent today than it was centuries ago. Other answers have already been found, such as how malaria effected a historic battle at the site hundreds of years ago. 

A detailed news story about the discoveries and research is published in the journal Science.*

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*Article #35: “The Thousand-Year Graveyard,” by Ann Gibbons at Science News in Washington, DC.

Cover Photo, Top Left: The city of Lucca in Giovanni Sercambi‘s Cronica, Archivio di Stato, Lucca, Biblioteca Manoscritti. Wikimedia Commons

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Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about, including the special Holiday Discount offer.  AND MORE:

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

Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email [email protected] and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com. 

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have successfully sequenced a complete mitochondrial (mtDNA) genome of a 400,000-year-old representative of the genus Homo from Sima de los Huesos, a cave site in northern Spain that has yielded some of the earliest fossil specimens of humans in present-day Europe. They found that the ancient individual was related to Denisovans, extinct relatives of Neanderthals in Asia, through a common ancestor.

“The fact that the mtDNA of the Sima de los Huesos hominin shares a common ancestor with Denisovan rather than Neanderthal mtDNAs is unexpected since its skeletal remains carry Neanderthal-derived features”, says lead researcher Matthias Meyer. Considering their age and Neanderthal-like features, the Sima hominins were likely related to the population ancestral to both Neanderthals and Denisovans. It is estimated that the ancestral population existed about 700,000 years ago. Another possibility is that gene flow from yet another group of hominins brought the Denisova-like mtDNA into the Sima hominins or their ancestors.

Sima de los Huesos, otherwise known as the “bone pit”, has yielded the world’s largest assembly of Middle Pleistocene (ca. 781 to 126 thousand years ago) hominin fossils, a total thus far of at least 28 skeletons, excavated and pieced together over the course of more than two decades by a Spanish team of paleontologists led by Juan-Luis Arsuaga. The fossils are classified as Homo heidelbergensis, but also carry traits typical of Neanderthals. 

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Skeleton of a Homo heidelbergensis from Sima de los Huesos. Credit: Javier Trueba, Madrid Scientific Films

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 Artist’s reconstruction of Homo heidelbergensis using forensic techniques. Cicero Moraes, Wikimedia Commons

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Meyer and his team have developed new techniques for retrieving and sequencing highly degraded ancient DNA, the kind of DNA that would be expected from fossils as old as the one sampled from the cave. In cooperation with Juan-Luis Arsuaga, director of Spain’s Center for Research on Human Evolution and Behaviour, Meyer and his team first applied the new techniques to a cave bear from the Sima de los Huesos site. Following this success, the researchers sampled two grams of bone powder from a hominin thigh bone from the cave. They extracted its DNA and sequenced the genome of the mtDNA, a portion of the genome that is passed down along the maternal line. The researchers then compared this ancient mitochondrial DNA with Neanderthals, Denisovans, present-day humans, and apes.

Until now, it has not been possible to study the DNA of hominins that are dated to the Middle Pleistocene, or older, except DNA extracted from specimens in the permafrost.

“Our results show that we can now study DNA from human ancestors that are hundreds of thousands of years old. This opens prospects to study the genes of the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans. It is tremendously exciting” says Svante Pääbo, director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

“This unexpected result points to a complex pattern of evolution in the origin of Neanderthals and modern humans. I hope that more research will help clarify the genetic relationships of the hominins from Sima de los Huesos to Neanderthals and Denisovans” says Arsuaga.

The next step for the researchers: retrieving and sequencing mtDNA from more individuals excavated at the Sima site, including nuclear DNA (DNA that contains information inherited from both parents and represents more of the genome).

The details of the study have been published in the December 4, 2013 issue of the journal Nature.*

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Source: Adapted and edited from a press release of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany

* Matthias Meyer, Qiaomei Fu, Ayinuer Aximu-Petri, Isabelle Glocke, Birgit Nickel, Juan-Luis Arsuaga, Ignacio Martínez, Ana Gracia, José María Bermúdez de Castro, Eudald Carbonell and Svante Pääbo, A mitochondrial genome sequence of a hominin from Sima de los Huesos, Nature, 4 December 2013 (DOI: 10.1038/nature12788)

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Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about, including the special Holiday Discount offer.  AND MORE:

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

Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email [email protected] and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com. 

Mount Vernon, Virginia — Anyone visiting George Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation estate today couldn’t possibly miss, among other things, this U.S. Founding Father’s large, white, well-appointed mansion house and its associated outbuildings. It has graced post cards for decades. It represents his home as it looked in its prime, as he lived in it following his terms as the Nation’s first President.

What visitors don’t usually see, however, are the remains of a different estate lying just below the surface — different because, in 1775, Washington embarked on a major campaign to renovate and remodel the Mansion, outbuildings, and even the landscape, transforming it to the place visitors see restored today. Now, archaeologists are exposing part of the hidden pre-1775 footprint, more particularly the foundations of an early pre-Revolutionary War kitchen adjacent to the west side of the Mansion. 

“We uncovered sections of the north, east, and south brick wall foundations of the first-period kitchen and the north cheek of its chimney base,” writes Luke Pecoraro, Assistant Director for Archaeological Research at Mount Vernon in a report. Other artifacts included fragments of white salt-glazed stoneware, a type of ceramic ware imported directly from England and used at Mount Vernon in the late 1750’s, and hand-painted pearlware, a type of ceramic ware that is not documented in the orders of imports to the estate, and thus could only have been revealed through archaeological investigation.

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Overall site photo of the kitchen excavation area. The post-1775 kitchen, the kitchen most visitors see today, is the white building adjacent to the excavation area. Courtesy Mount Vernon Preservation

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Archaeologists know, based on the estate inventory taken after Washington’s older half-brother Lawrence’s death in 1752, that there were four pre-1775 outbuildings, which included an earlier storehouse, dairy, kitchen, and washhouse. In conjunction with the archaeological record, this has defined an approximate visual concept of the earlier Mount Vernon Mansion complex. To further investigate and elucidate this earlier construction, Mount Vernon’s Historic Preservation and Collections Department, in conjunction with the Historic Preservation Program in the Department of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at the University of Maryland (UMD), organized a field school led by archaeologists and consisting of students representing 8 U.S. universities.  Says Pecoraro: “The focus of the summer [2013] field work was the 1775 kitchen, offering an opportunity for us to explore the first generation of outbuildings at Mount Vernon, specifically an early kitchen and dairy, that George Washington inherited from his brother Lawrence and used for approximately 20 years before tearing them down to enlarge the Mansion, build a new kitchen, and connect the two with a covered archway.”

“A single test unit was opened for the dairy, where we encountered the intact southwest corner of the building’s sandstone foundations,” added Pecoraro. “Artifacts found in the eighteenth-century dairy destruction rubble included fragments of ceramic vessels, plaster from the interior walls, and a decorated rim to a wine glass bearing a pattern that was identical to a sherd recovered from the near-by South Grove midden.”

The South Grove midden was a refuse pit used by the Washington family and enslaved families during the late 18th century. Located near the family kitchen, it was excavated by archaeologists from 1990 through 1994, resulting in the recovery of nearly 300,000 artifacts. 

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Wine glass fragment found during the dairy excavation; the same pattern was found in an earlier excavation roughly 50 feet south in the South Grove midden. Courtesy Mount Vernon Preservation

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“Our final discovery [for the 2013 season] was the cobblestone surface of what we believe to be George Washington’s circular driveway,” Pecoraro continued. “In some places it is less than an inch below the modern road surface. These cobblestones had been documented in two previous excavations.”

The field school will continue at least through the next season in 2014. Individuals interested in participating should link to the informational flyer here. 

See the project website for more, including videos.

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Students and staff archaeologists excavating in front of the kitchen. Courtesy Mount Vernon Preservation

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Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about, including the special Holiday Discount offer.  AND MORE:

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

Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email [email protected] and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com. 

December 5th, 2013

Scientists Sequence 400,000-Year-Old Hominin DNA

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have successfully sequenced a complete mitochondrial (mtDNA) genome of a 400,000-year-old representative of the genus Homo from Sima de los Huesos, a cave site in northern Spain that has yielded some of the earliest fossil specimens of humans in present-day Europe. They found that the ancient individual was related to Denisovans, extinct relatives of Neanderthals in Asia, through a common ancestor. (Popular Archaeology)

Ancient Tomb of Chimú Nobles Found in Peru

Archaeologists working at the site of an ancient town in the coastal desert of northern Peru made a surprising discovery in late August—a multichamber tomb from the much later Chimú culture that held the remains of at least four noble musicians and weavers. Two human sacrifices, seen in this photo, accompanied the tomb’s elite occupants into eternity. The site of Samanco spreads over some 75 acres in the Nepeña River valley. Most of its ruins belong to a small trading community that flourished between 800 and 200 B.C. (National Geographic)

December 3rd, 2013

New Clues About Human Sacrifices at Ancient Peruvian Temple

Human-sacrifice rituals at an ancient Moche temple in Peru likely featured the killing of war captives from distant valleys, according to an analysis of bones and teeth at the site. The human remains—mutilated, dismembered, and buried in pits—help explain territorial struggles among the Moche, who ruled Peru’s arid coast from around 100 A.D. to 850 A.D. (National Geographic)

Tracking Buddha’s birthday

A well-known historical site in Nepal may gain even more significance after archeologists found evidence linking the site of the temple with the birth of Buddha in the sixth century B.C.. Most historical records link Buddhism’s origins with the fifth or sixth century B.C. But according to the researchers working at this site, their findings are the first to link the life of Buddha with a specific century. (SummitCountyVoice)

Dedication To the Lord of Death Found at Tehuacan

Dedicated to Mictlantecuhtli or Lord of Death, archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) investigated a shrine thought to be of mid-fourteenth century date located 20 metres to the south of the Great Temple at the site of Tehuacan in Puebla, Mexico. (Past Horizons)

Paleolithic Cave Painters in Europe were Mostly Women, Researcher Says

The assumption has been that handprints, whether stencils – paint blown around the hand – or actual paint-dipped prints, were produced by men because other images on cave walls were often hunting scenes. The smaller handprints were assumed to be adolescent boys. Prof Snow came across the work of Liverpool University scientist Dr John Manning, who about 10 years ago tried to use the relationships of various hand measurements to determine not only sex, but such things as sexual preference or susceptibility to heart disease. Prof Snow wondered if he could apply this method to the handprints left in cave sites in Europe. (Sci-News.com)

Remains of 18 people found on dig medieval dig in Durham

The skeletons 18 people have been unearthed at a mass medieval burial site near Durham Cathedral. At first archaeologists thought the remains were part of the cathedral’s cemetery but then realised they had been “tipped” into the ground. They were found during work on Durham University’s Palace Green library. (BBC News)

Shaanxi skull find shows women were sacrificed in ancient China

Archaeologists in China have unearthed the skulls of more than 80 young women who may have been sacrificed more than 4,000 years ago, state media reported on Monday. The skulls were found in what appears to have been a mass grave at the Shimao Ruins, the site of a neolithic stone city in the northern province of Shaanxi. (South China Morning Post)

Archaeologists discover Chachapoyas sarcophagi in Amazonas, Peru

Diminutive size of sarcophagi has led archaeologists to believe that it may be a cemetery exclusively for children.  Archaeologists working in the Amazonas region of Peru have discovered 35 sarcophagi belonging to the Chachapoyas culture. Peru21 reports that the find was made this past July with the help of a super long zoom camera. In September, researchers were able to reach the site to confirm the find and discovered that the sarcophagi were only about 70 centimeters tall on average. Researchers believe that the group of sarcophagi may constitute a cemetery in which only children were buried. (PeruThisWeek)

Archaeologists discover slave artifacts where Ga. highway project will cross plantation site

A Mexican coin punctured with a small hole, nails from long-decayed wooden dwellings, and broken bits of plates and bottles are among thousands of artifacts unearthed from what archaeologists suspect were once slave quarters at the site of a planned highway project in Savannah. (Tribtown.com)

Researchers plan for Ice Age dig in Vero Beach

Officials are signing an agreement that will allow an archaeological dig to move forward in Vero Beach The agreement being signed Monday will allow researchers from a Pennsylvania university to excavate a site where Ice Age fossils of animals were discovered almost 100 years ago. Along with evidence of mastodons and saber-tooth cats, archaeologists found human remains that they named “Vero Man.” (WinkNews)

An international multi-disciplinary team of scientists have determined that a well-known group of early Homo (early human) fossils discovered in previous investigations at Koobi Fora in the Turkana Basin of East Africa have an age range that is older than previously estimated.

Led by archaeologist Josephine C.A. Joordens of the Netherlands’ Leiden University, the researchers combined magnetostratigraphy and strontium (Sr) isotope stratigraphy techniques to develop a new age constraint range for 15 selected hominin fossils found in deposits on the Karari Ridge of the Koobi Fora region in the eastern Turkana Basin (Kenya). Magnetostratigraphy measures the polarity of Earth’s changing magnetic field at the time a stratum (layer) was deposited. Strontium isotope stratigraphy involves measuring the ratios of Strontium isotopes in sediments to determine relative ages between successively deposited sediments. The fossils included key specimens such as cranium KNM-ER 1470, partial face KNM-ER 62000 and mandibles KNM-ER 1482, KNM-ER 1801, and KNM-ER 1802, all well-known among scientists and scholars involved in human evolution research. The fossil KNM-ER 1470, for example, has been classified as belonging to the early human species Homo rudolfensis, discovered by Bernard Ngeneo in 1972 and considered a possible theoretical contender for being ancestral to the human line. It has been dated to about 1.9 million years BPE. 

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Satellite view of the Turkana Basin, Koobi Fora region, showing Lake Turkana. Fossils were found in an area just east of Lake Turkana. Wikimedia Commons 

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Surface level view of Turkana Basin looking toward Lake Turkana. AdamPG, Wikimedia Commons

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Now, however, the results of their tests and analyses show a new age-range constraint of between 1.945 ± 0.004 and 2.058 ± 0.034 Ma, making the fossil finds older than previously estimated, and providing a sharper, more specific age range for their deposit.

“To address questions regarding the evolutionary origin, radiation and dispersal of the genus Homo,” writes Joorden, et al. in their report, “it is crucial to be able to place the occurrence of hominin fossils in a high-resolution chronological framework. The period around 2 Ma (millions of years ago) in eastern Africa is of particular interest as it is at this time that a more substantial fossil record of the genus Homo is first found.”

In addition to the new age range, their research shed light on the possible geographic origins and ecological/climatological adaptability of these early humans. As they report:

“……..our results show that in this time interval, hominins occurred throughout the wet–dry climate cycles, supporting the hypothesis that the lacustrine Turkana Basin was a refugium during regionally dry periods. By establishing the observed first appearance datum of a marine-derived stingray in UBU [upper Burgi] deposits at 2.058 ± 0.034 Ma, we show that at this time the Turkana Basin was hydrographically connected [via a postulated ancient ‘Turkana River’] to the Indian Ocean, facilitating dispersal of fauna between these areas. From a biogeographical perspective, we propose that the Indian Ocean coastal strip should be considered as a possible source area for one or more of the multiple Homo species in the Turkana Basin from over 2 Ma onwards.”

The study report, Improved age control on early Homo fossils from the upper Burgi Member at Koobi Fora, Kenya, has been published in the December 2013 issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.  

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Cover photo, Top Left: Homo rudolfensis skull (KNM ER 1470) reconstruction displayed at Museum of Man, San Diego. Durova, Wikimedia Commons

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Durham University archaeologists have found the remains of many more human bodies at a dig on the City’s World Heritage Site, providing clear evidence of a centuries-old mass grave.

The number of bodies found has risen from four to 18.

Experts first thought they had uncovered remains of Durham Cathedral’s medieval cemetery, whose boundaries may have extended further than the present day burial site.

But further investigation has revealed an unorthodox and intriguing layout to the bodies which archaeologists say is proof of a mass burial.

Richard Annis, senior archaeologist, Archaeological Services Durham University, said: “We have found clear evidence of a mass burial and not a normal group of graves.

“One of the densest areas of the excavation was further north, which is further away from the edge of the presumed graveyard.

“The bodies have been tipped into the earth without elaborate ceremony and they are tightly packed together and jumbled.

“Some are buried in a North to South alignment, rather than the traditional East to West alignment that we would expect from a conventional medieval burial site.”

The same Durham University team will carry out further research into the remains, which will include dating the bones and looking for clues as to their origin. This work is expected to begin in the New Year. 

Mr Annis added that no definitive interpretation could be offered at this stage in the investigation: “The process of post-excavation processing, examination and analysis is essential to allow us to draw proper conclusions about this group of human remains.

“It is too early to say what they may be.”

The evidence of human remains was found earlier in November during building work at the University’s Palace Green Library.

With the necessary permission from the UK’s Ministry of Justice, archaeologists are carrying out excavation works in the area before taking the bones away for further examination. By law, the bones must eventually be reinterred at an approved burial ground.

Palace Green Library is undergoing a £10m development to establish world-class exhibition and visitor facilities, part of a £30m total investment in Durham University library services.

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Source: Durham University Press Release, November 29, 2013

Cover Photo, Top Left: Courtesy Durham University Archaeological Services and Durham University News

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Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about, including the special Holiday Discount offer.  AND MORE:

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

Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email [email protected] and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com. 

Scientists excavating within the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Maya Devi Temple in Lumbini, Nepal, have unearthed a timber structure that they date to the sixth century BCE. It is situated within and underlies a temple that is considered sacred to many as the birthplace of Siddhārtha Gautama, or Buddha. Until now, there has been no archaeological evidence supporting a date any earlier than the third century BCE for Buddha’s life. Some historians have suggested the death of Buddha took place sometime in the late 4th century or early 3rd century BCE, although there are a number of traditions with varying dates. 

“This sheds light on a very long debate,” said excavation co-leader Robin Coningham of Durham University, U.K.

Working amidst meditating monks, visiting pilgrims and nuns, the international team of archaeologists, led by Coningham along with Kosh Prasad Acharya of the Pashupati Area Development Trust in Nepal, discovered the timber structure remains while excavating under an overlying series of successive brick temples. To determine the dating of the timber structure, including a previously unknown first brick structure superimposed above it, charcoal and sand grain samples removed from the relevant layers of the early timber structure were tested using radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence techniques. Interestingly, geoarchaeological research also revealed evidence of ancient tree roots within the timber structure’s central space. This latter find is important because, according to Buddhist tradition, Queen Maya Devi, the mother of Buddha, gave birth to him while grasping a branch of a tree. Coningham and his colleagues suggest that the open central space from which the charcoal and sand samples were removed was large enough to accommodate the tree. Thus, concludes Coningham, “we have very clear evidence that this [timber] shrine was focused around the tree.” The later brick temples built over the timber structure, which was built around the open central space, were also arranged around this central space. Moreover, the results of their investigation indicated that the central space had “never been covered by a roof,” suggesting the significance of a space that clearly required special or unique treatment. 

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Archaeologists Robin Coningham (left) and Kosh Prasad Acharya direct excavations within the Maya Devi Temple, uncovering a series of ancient temples contemporary with the Buddha. Thai monks meditate. Photo by Ira Block/National Geographic/National Geographic Buddha Birthplace

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Monks chant within the Maya Devi Temple at Lumbini in Nepal. The modern temple enshrines the birthplace of the Buddha. Photo by Ira Block/National Geographic/National Geographic Buddha Birthplace

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Pilgrims meditate at the wall below the nativity scene within the Maya Devi Temple at Lumbini, Nepal. The remains of the earliest temples at the site are in the background. Photo by Ira Block/National Geographic/National Geographic Buddha Birthplace 

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Said Coningham: “Very little is known about the life of the Buddha, except through textual sources and oral tradition. We thought ‘why not go back to archaeology to try to answer some of the questions about his birth?’ Now, for the first time, we have an archaeological sequence at Lumbini that shows a building there as early as the sixth century B.C.”

Long lost and hidden by jungle overgrowth, ancient Lumbini was rediscovered in 1896 and, because of an inscription on a sandstone pillar discovered at the site, was identified as the birthplace of the Buddha. The inscription bears record of a historic visit by 3rd century India’s Emperor Ashoka to the site of the Buddha’s birth. The inscription also included the site’s name as Lumbini. Under Ashoka’s patronage, Buddhism spread from present-day Afghanistan to Bangladesh. 

Other key historic sites related to Buddhism are Bodh Gaya, where Gautama became the Buddha; Sarnath, where he began his preaching; and Kusinagara, where he died. 

Among the world’s major religions, Buddhism is followed by about 500 million people, with hundreds of thousands who make the pilgrimage to Lumbini annually.  

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The research was funded by the government of Japan in partnership with the government of Nepal under a UNESCO project for conserving and managing the Lumbini site. Funding was also provided by the National Geographic Society, Durham University, and Stirling University. The report details are published in the December 2013 issue of the international journal Antiquity. 

A documentary on Coningham’s exploration of the Buddha’s life, “Buried Secrets of the Buddha,” will premiere in February internationally on National Geographic Channel.

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For an alternative perspective, an excellent and interesting commentary can be read about this discovery at The Subversive Archaeologist.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about, including the special Holiday Discount offer.  AND MORE:

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

Subscription Price: A very affordable $5.75 for those who are not already premium subscribers of Popular Archaeology Magazine (It is FREE for premium subscribers to Popular Archaeology). Premium subscribers should email [email protected] and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com.