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September 8th, 2013

George Washington’s Incredible Garbage Dump

Most people wouldn’t even think about an 18th century refuse pit. But for archaeologists, it can be a veritable goldmine of information about the past. And for archaeological investigators at George Washington’s Mount Vernon home and estate near the Virginia banks of the Potomac river in 1990, no pile of garbage was as precious as the one located just south of the famous restored mansion house in the area historically known as the south grove. (Popular Archaeology)

Fragments of Mayan Jaguar Sculptures Found in El Salvador

At least 160 fragments of sculptures, possibly of jaguars, were discovered by specialists in the archaeological park of Cihuatan, located in central El Salvador, the Culture Secretariat said. The remains come from “five or six feline sculptures,” found along with pieces of two censers, the secretariat said in a statement. (Latin American Herald Tribune)

Machu Picchu’s ‘sister city’ may finally get visitors

The Choquequirao ruins in Cusco, Peru. Choquequirao, which means “cradle of gold” in Quechua, is believed to be the last refuge of Incan rulers who fled Cuzco after its leader Manco Inca was defeated by Spanish conquistadors. The former mountaintop refuge of Incan royalty has elegant halls and plazas much like those of fabled Machu Picchu just 30 miles away. Yet only a handful of tourists visit the ruins each day, those willing to make a two-day hike to reach its majestic solitude. (MercuryNews.com)

Secret ‘slave’ tunnels discovered under Roman emperor’s villa

Amateur archaeologists have uncovered a massive network of tunnels under the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli, Italy. The underground passageways likely allowed thousands of slaves and merchants to keep the estate running without creating any distraction at the street level. (NBCNews.com)

Flag Fen Bronze Age boats older than was first thought

Eight Bronze Age boats discovered in a deep Cambridgeshire quarry are much older than it was first thought, carbon-dating research has revealed. The vessels, found by archaeologists at Must Farm near Peterborough in 2011, have now been dated to about 1500 BC, 200 years older than was first thought. (BBC News)

‘Slip’ between monumental cup and CAG’s lip

The Archaeological Survey of India has come under glare after a CAG report revealed in late August that 92 protected monuments in its care cannot be traced, including seven in the Calcutta circle. The ASI has, however, termed the report erroneous and attributed the “wrong” figures to “miscommunication” and a “lack of co-ordination” between the CAG’s performance audit team and its own field officers who may not have been updated about the existence of the monuments. (The Telegraph)

New Microplasma Device Could Potentially Revolutionize Archaeology

A team of researchers, including experts from Uppsala University in Sweden have developed a miniature device that they claim could revolutionize the way in which archaeologists date objects they discover in the field. The instrument in question is being described as a high-tech microplasma source that is capable of exciting matter in a controlled, efficient way. While the device, which is detailed in a paper appearing in the Journal of Applied Physics, could be used in a wide range of applications in harsh environments, the authors claim that it could drastically change the study of artifacts. (RedOrbit.com)

Medieval church found in King’s Square

ARCHAEOLOGISTS working for City of York Council may have found evidence of a medieval church in King’s Square. The team is working to transform the square, and also found the foundations of a Victorian church at the site during the dig. (YorkPress)

When Did Human Speech Evolve?

About 1.75 million years ago, our human ancestors, the hominins (who you may remember as the hominids), achieved a technological breakthrough. They began to craft stone hand axes (called Acheulean tools) in ways that required more planning and precision than had been used in earlier tool-making processes. Around the same time, these prehistoric people began to talk. (New Hampshire News)

Most people wouldn’t even think about an 18th century refuse pit. But for archaeologists, it can be a veritable goldmine of information about the past. And for archaeological investigators at George Washington’s Mount Vernon home and estate near the Virginia banks of the Potomac river in 1990, no pile of garbage was as precious as the one located just south of the famous restored mansion house in the area historically known as the south grove. 

Designated the South Grove Midden (a “midden” in archaeological parlance is another name for a trash dump), clues of its existence actually first emerged in 1948, when members of the Mount Vernon grounds crew excavated a hole in the area to plant a holly tree. A number of artifacts dating to the eighteenth century were recovered, telltale clues that the south grove area could be the location of midden deposits formed during George Washington’s lifetime. This would be no surprise, as the area was near the Washington household kitchen and it was common in the 18th century to dispose of household refuse near where it was generated. Spots not far from the back doors of kitchens were considered prime dumping grounds back then. 

But it wasn’t until 1990 when archaeologists began to seriously focus on the spot, after a grounds crew again encountered historic deposits while constructing an irrigation system. From 1990 through 1994, full-scale excavations (see image right) recovered nearly 300,000 artifacts, an unprecedented array of household items deposited by the Washington family and enslaved families over several decades in the 18th century.

“The South Grove Midden collection represents the largest and most significant collection of artifacts excavated to date associated with the domestic lives of the Washington households,” says Eleanor Breen, Deputy Director of Archaeology at Mount Vernon.  “One evocative artifact after another – from the unique to the prosaic – tells the interconnected stories of Mount Vernon plantation’s earliest residents: Lawrence and Anne Fairfax Washington; George Washington in his bachelorhood and as a newlywed; and the enslaved Africans and African Americans who labored in the mansion and outbuildings.”   

Thus as any archaeologist would say, the artifacts in themselves are not the real treasure. It is the information that can be gleaned from them. The South Grove Midden artifacts have afforded scholars and the public alike with a remarkable window on life on George Washington’s estate during the period of its occupation by the Washington family from about 1735 to 1858, and evidence of activities there before and after that period.

Nothing spoke to this more when, in January 2013, the most significant finds were highlighted in a searchable online database of no less than 711 key objects, including photographs, detailed summaries, and catalogue information, all interfaced with documentary and thematic material information that in essence makes them accessible to any visitor. But, says Breen, “the Mount Vernon Midden website is more than an e-museum, it’s a digital humanities effort to present the individual artifacts in layers of both archaeological and historical context.”

“In envisioning and designing the website with Mark Freeman of Stories Past, our goal was to reach a broad audience – from the archaeology enthusiast to the scholar of material culture. The website is structured like a pyramid with the individual object catalogue records at the top (with professional quality photographs that can be zoomed in on for greater detail and unique narrative text explaining the significance of the artifact), more extensive content in the middle (in the form of summaries of artifact sub-assemblages and thematic essays on groupings of artifacts), and the complete artifact catalogue at the base (accessed via www.daacs.org).”        

To give an example of just one individual object record, one artifact, known to archaeological enthusiasts and scholars of George Washington as the George Washington trunk plate, is pictured at the website as object no. 2921. It represents both an affirmation of the historicity of George Washington’s experience during the Revolutionary War as well as tangible material witness to his genteel status in 18th century American society: 

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[Recovered from the South Grove Midden] This oval copper alloy plate, engraved “Gen: Washington,” is identical to a plate affixed to a trunk in the Mount Vernon collection which George Washington is known to have purchased secondhand on April 4, 1776, in Boston, soon after he took up his duties as general of the Continental Army. The plate on the trunk was placed over the initials of the previous owner, a Boston merchant named John Head. Throughout the Revolutionary War, the security of his official correspondence and orders was a perpetual concern for General George Washington. In the intervening weeks between the British evacuation of Boston and his departure to defend Manhattan, Washington obtained the travelling trunk to contain the increasing number of official papers in his possession. The trunk was part of General Washington’s baggage throughout the war, returning with him to Mount Vernon when he retired from military service in 1783. Given the similarity of the two specimens, the excavated plate almost surely had the same origin. The original trunk was made of rawhide, wood, leather and lined with linen. Only the metal hardware (tacks, hinges, and this plate) would survive archaeologically.

This is one of the few artifacts that we have found with George Washington’s name engraved upon it. The other object excavated from the South Grove Midden that can be linked directly back to Washington is the fragment of a silver scabbard collar engraved with part of his monogram (2696). Wine bottle seals with the crest, name, or initials of their past owners are encountered in the archaeological record at Mount Vernon and on other historic sites of the colonial period; however, it appears that George Washington did not have his own. The significance of these formally marked objects relates to an expression of gentility and status. For example, pewter dishes were widely available in the eighteenth century to consumers. However, a simple pewter plate could be elevated and distinguished with the placement of a family crest, as George Washington requested be done on a set of 96 pewter dishes in 1759.  

— Object Detail from the Mount Vernon Midden Project website.

Photo courtesy Mount Vernon Preservation.

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“Other artifacts excavated from the soil layers of the midden give us pause to consider how Lawrence and George Washington and other elite planters afforded this burgeoning genteel lifestyle,” adds Breen.  “A singular artifact called a denier gauge [pictured as object no. 2922 in the database], a small magnifying glass that counted threads per quarter inch of cloth, focuses our attention on the enslaved men and women upon whose labor refined styles of life were based.  At the beginning of Washington’s tenure at Mount Vernon, he oversaw approximately 30 Africans and Afro-Virginians, a community whose numbers would increase to over 300 at the time of Washington’s death in 1799. These enslaved individuals worked for the profit of their owners plowing the fields, forging the iron, cooking the meals, and sewing or weaving the cloth – the quality of which was measured and checked by Martha Washington using the denier gauge.”

The database contains much more than objects excavated from the Midden. Also documented are 3,839 invoices and orders, described through both picture and narrative. They constitute the record of his economic life before the Revolutionary War, from 1754 to 1773, including items such as fabrics, seeds, medicines, shoes, foodstuffs, and plantation tools shipped to him on a total of 26 vessels during that time period. Along with the other objects, Mount Vernon archaeologists say that these invoices and orders have helped, and will continue to be a key, to improving our understanding of material culture, consumerism, and economics during 18th century colonial America. 

“The South Grove Midden and associated documentary evidence in the form of George Washington’s orders for goods from England and inventories of a local store in the town of Colchester provides the opportunity to study a dynamic period in American history,” says Breen.  “What makes the 40-year period before the American Revolution unique is that access to consumer goods appears to have opened up for larger segments of the colonial population through a more sophisticated and far-reaching system of distribution for imported items – an event described as the consumer revolution. The artifacts and documents associated with the site offer an opportunity to explore this transformation through material culture.”    

Anyone can access and explore the database by going to mountvernonmidden.org.

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All images courtesy Mount Vernon Ladies Association, Mount Vernon Department of Archaeology, and 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.  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 populararchaeology@gmail.com and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com. 

September 4th, 2013

Modern Humans Were in China Much Earlier Than Previously Thought

The ongoing debate about when and how anatomically modern humans (“AMH”) made their presence in east Asia has taken another turn with new evidence recovered from a cave in central China. The finds may push back the generally accepted time of their appearance in the region by as much as 50,000 years. A team of six researchers from four institutions, using high-precision mass spectrometric U-series dating techniques, were able to determine a reliable and constrained date range of between 81 and 101 ka (thousand years) for seven human fossil teeth recovered from the Huanglong Cave in the Hubei Province of central China. (Popular Archaeology)

Who ruled ancient Egypt and when: The most precise timeline yet

The most precise chronology of Early Egypt yet suggests the country formed much more quickly than previously thought. The new finding reveals a robust timeline for the first eight kings and queens of Egypt, including, in order of succession, King Aha, King Djer, King Djet, Queen Merneith, King Den, King Anedjib, King Semerkhet and King Qa’a. The accession of Aha to the throne is often thought to define the start of the Egyptian state, with the new study suggesting (with 68 percent probability) that he became king between 3111 B.C. and 3045 B.C. (NBCNews)

Richard III’s worms of discontent: Experts say hunchback English king infected with parasite

Researchers who dug up King Richard III’s skeleton say they appear to have discovered another problem the hunchback monarch had during his brief and violent reign: parasitic worms in his guts that grew up to a foot long. In those remains, dug up last year beneath a parking lot in Leicester, the researchers say they discovered numerous roundworm eggs in the soil around his pelvis, where his intestines would have been. (The Washington Post)

Archaeologists Unearth 10,400-Year-Old Settlements in Bolivia

An international team of scientists from Switzerland, Australia, Germany and the United States has discovered remains of three hunter-gatherer settlements in the western Amazon. Their study, reported in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, focuses on a region in the Bolivian Amazon thought to be rarely occupied by pre-agricultural communities due to unfavorable environmental conditions (Sci-News.com)

Men’s average height ‘up 11cm since 1870s’

The average height of men has risen by almost 11cm since the mid-19th century, experts have found. Data was collected on hundreds of thousands of men from 15 European countries. For British men, the average height at age 21 rose from 167.05cm (5ft 5in) in 1871-75 to 177.37cm (5ft 10in) in 1971-75. A public health expert said height was a “useful barometer” but it was crucial to focus on improving health overall. (BBC News)

The ongoing debate about when and how anatomically modern humans (“AMH”) made their presence in east Asia has taken another turn with new evidence recovered from a cave in central China. The finds may push back the generally accepted time of their appearance in the region by as much as 50,000 years.

A team of six researchers from four institutions, using high-precision mass spectrometric U-series dating techniques, were able to determine a reliable and constrained date range of between 81 and 101 ka (thousand years) for seven human fossil teeth recovered from the Huanglong Cave in the Hubei Province of central China. The teeth, determined to exhibit anatomically modern human characteristics, were revealed in a layer associated with stone tools and other fossilized animal remains during excavations conducted in 2004, 2005 and 2006 by a joint team from the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The excavations were followed by further fieldwork in 2010 and 2011. 

Reports Guangun Shen, et al., “the existence of localized thin flowstone formations bracketing the hominin [ancient human] fossil-bearing deposits enables us to firmly constrain the human teeth into the range between 81 ka  and 101 ka, probably the most narrow time span for any hominin fossil beyond 45 ka in China”.* Flowstones are sheetlike deposits of calcite formed over many thousands of years, the result of water flowing down the walls or along the floors of caves. They are a type of speleothem, or secondary mineral deposit such as a stalagtite or stalagmite, often found in ancient cave systems. 

According to the study authors, the finding comes after a series of other relatively recent excavations and reports that have produced “a growing body of evidence for the possible presence of AMH in eastern Asia as early as 100 ka ago”.* They refer here to some limestone caves in southern China where scientists have come up with more ancient dates, including Liujiang (between 111 and 139 ka), Ganqian (between 94 and 220 ka), Bailiandong (more than 160 ka), and Zhirendong (more than 100 ka) in Guangxi. The Guanglong Cave results, however, are considered the most reliable because of the much narrower constraining range of 81 to 101 ka as determined by the latest U-series dating technology.

These new findings have challenged the prevailing theory among scientists that anatomically modern humans were not present in China or east Asia until roughly around 40,000 – 50,000 years ago. This is based on earlier findings at a number of sites across China and east Asia that point to a ‘gap’ between 100 ka and 40 ka ago lacking any human fossils, more specifically between the latest archaic humans and the earliest modern humans, and genetic studies of present-day Chinese populations that have suggested a late appearance of AMH in eastern Asia.

But this previous data, maintains Shen, et al., was generated using older, less reliable dating techniques and excluded fossils claimed to represent AMH.  “Based on our work on the sites of H. erectus (an earlier form of human) and of both archaic and modern H. sapiens over the past twenty plus years, we argue that the temporal framework in China has been artificially ‘compressed and gapped,’ meaning that due to limitations in previous dating techniques and practices, the ages of Chinese hominin fossils have been significantly postdated (compressed), and that a temporal gap between archaic H. sapiens and AMH has been artificially created (gapped).”* 

Regarding the genetic studies, they argue that “more solid skeletal discoveries, along with parallel studies in relevant disciplines are needed to reconcile the geochronology and the molecular clock.”*

Perhaps even more significant, the researchers suggest that the entire timeline for hominin (ancient human) presence in east China should be shifted back earlier in time and should be continuous (without the gap), based on updated research. This includes the advent of H. erectus at more than 400 ka old, rather than the current 230 ka; archaic H. sapiens at more than 200 ka, instead of ca. 110 ka; and the emergence of AMH at around 100 ka or earlier.

Concludes the team: “The newly established timeline for hominin fossils in China, as a result of more meticulous stratigraphic work and the advancement in dating techniques, demands a reexamination of hominin fossils and associated materials in a more coherent chronological context in China.”*

Details of the study have been published in the August 2013 issue of the Journal of Human Evolution as Mass spectrometric U-series dating of Huanglong Cave in Hubei Province, central China: Evidence for early presence of modern humans in eastern Asia. 

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*http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004724841300119X

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

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 populararchaeology@gmail.com and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com. 

Here is another clue for scientists engaged in figuring out how human evolution worked: Just like in the movies, researchers are finding that the good guys always win in the end.

This is the message from results of a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of September 2, 2013. The study was conducted by a duo of University of Pennsylvania biologists. Postdoctoral researcher Alexander J. Stewart and associate professor Joshua B. Plotkin analyzed the outcome of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, as played continuously by a large, evolving population of players.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a game that shows why two individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their collective best interests to do so. In the game, if both players cooperate, they both receive a payoff. If one cooperates and the other does not, the cooperating player receives the smallest possible payoff, and the defecting player the largest. If both players do not cooperate, they receive a payoff, but it is less than what they would gain if both had cooperated. In other words, it pays to cooperate, but it can pay even more to be selfish.

The significance of the research is that, while previous researchers have suggested that cooperative strategies can be successful, for the first time, Stewart and Plotkin offer mathematical proof that the only strategies that succeed in the long term are generous ones. It flies in the face of the principle of “survival of the fittest”, which has traditionally underpinned the Darwinian concept of biological evolution. 

“Ever since Darwin,” Plotkin said, “biologists have been puzzled about why there is so much apparent cooperation, and even flat-out generosity and altruism, in nature. The literature on game theory has worked to explain why generosity arises. Our paper provides such an explanation for why we see so much generosity in front of us.”

The research differed from previous studies in another way. Instead of a one-on-one competition, they envisioned a population of players matching up against one another, as might occur in a human or animal society in nature. The most successful players would get to “reproduce” more, passing on their strategies to the next generation of players.

It quickly became clear to the Penn biologists that extortion strategies wouldn’t do well if played within a large, evolving population because an extortion strategy doesn’t succeed if played against itself.

“The fact that there are extortion strategies immediately suggests that, at the other end of the scale, there might also be generous strategies,” Stewart said. “You might think being generous would be a stupid thing to do, and it is if there are only two players in the game, but, if there are many players and they all play generously, they all benefit from each other’s generosity.”

In generous strategies, which are essentially the opposite of extortion strategies, players tend to cooperate with their opponents, but, if they don’t, they suffer more than their opponents do over the long term. “Forgiveness” is also a feature of these strategies. A player who encounters a defector may punish the defector a bit but after a time may cooperate with the defector again.

After simulating how some generous strategies would fare in an evolving population, Stewart and Plotkin crafted a mathematical proof showing that, not only can generous strategies succeed in the evolutionary version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, in fact these are the only approaches that resist defectors over the long term.

“Our paper shows that no selfish strategies will succeed in evolution,” Plotkin said. “The only strategies that are evolutionarily robust are generous ones.”

The discovery, while abstract, helps explain the presence of generosity in nature, an inclination that can sometimes seem counter to the Darwinian notion of survival of the fittest.

“When people act generously they feel it is almost instinctual, and indeed a large literature in evolutionary psychology shows that people derive happiness from being generous,” Plotkin said. “It’s not just in humans. Of course social insects behave this way, but even bacteria and viruses share gene products and behave in ways that can’t be described as anything but generous.”

“We find that in evolution, a population that encourages cooperation does well,” Stewart said. “To maintain cooperation over the long term, it is best to be generous.”

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Source: Adapted and edited from a University of Pennsylvania press release.

Cover Photo, Top Left: Allegorical personification of Charity (Generosity) as a mother with three infants by Anthony van Dyck.  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.  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 populararchaeology@gmail.com and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com. 

Archaeologists excavating at the site of Jamestown, the New World’s first successful English colony, have uncovered more features evidencing activity of the first English colonists who arrived on Jamestown Island, Virginia, more than 400 years ago.

Excavations in the churchyard of the 1907 Memorial Church have turned up about 70 feet of the now vanished historic James Fort palisade that defined an eastern extension of the Fort. Reports Dr. William M. Kelso, head of archaeological research at Historic Jamestowne: “The shape of this expansion also seems to be a mirror image of James Fort, where one angle of the triangle was 90 degrees and two were 45 degrees. So a bird’s eye view of the expanded fort might resemble a diamond shape.” 

The eastern extension of the Fort has been documented historically, but this is the first time actual evidence of this 70-foot portion has been encountered on the ground through excavation.

Additionally, excavators have uncovered 10 long, foot-and-a-half wide, evenly spaced features extending eastward from the original James Fort space, features they believe were planting furrows dating to the first months of the 1607 settlement. If true, this would make the finding the earliest evidence of English planting, or agriculture, in the New World.

Archaeologists were able to confirm the early date of the furrows by observing that a wall line trench dated to 1608 cut through the furrow marks, clearly suggesting that the furrows predated the 1608 palisade line. These furrows also appeared to match furrows uncovered 10 years before outside the southeast bulwark of the James Fort. 

Captain John Smith’s 1607 account mentions instructions given by the Virginia Company (the sponsoring organization for the Jamestown venture) to the first settlers about dividing up into groups, one third to build a fort and the others to prepare the soil and plant. Along with the growing of tobacco, which became the staple crop for the area for decades to come, the first colonists were recorded to have brought seeds of English grains with them to plant as an experiment to determine how well the English crops would grow in the New World. The seeds are documented to have included those of fruits and vegetables brought over from the West Indies (the Caribbean), such as orange trees, cotton, potatoes, melons, pineapple and pumpkins.

“This is the beginning of Southern agriculture. Agriculture — the growing of tobacco — saved the colony and set the economic pattern for the South for centuries,” said senior staff archaeologist David Givens.

“It’s remarkable that these furrows have survived, probably because they were in the churchyard and protected,” Givens added. 

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Source: Edited and adapted from Where are We Digging Now?, September 2013, Jamestown Rediscovery, http://www.historicjamestowne.org/the_dig/

Cover Photo, Top Left: Archaeologists excavate at Jamestown. Smithsonian Institution Photo, 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.  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 populararchaeology@gmail.com and request the special coupon code. Or, for the e-Book version, it can be purchased for only $3.99 at Amazon.com. 

August 26th, 2013

Prehistoric Europeans Spiced Up Their Food

It seems that at least some of our prehistoric ancestors, like us, liked to spice up their food for a more palatable cuisine. So concludes a recent study led by Hayley Saul of the University of York. By examining isolated carbonized (burned) food deposits from pottery shards dated from ca. 6,100 to 3,750 BP from three sites in Denmark and Germany, Saul and colleagues identified phytoliths from plant remains that are likely mustard garlic seeds. Phytoliths are created when plants absorb silica from the soil. The silica is deposited within different intracellular and extracellular structures of the plant and, after the plants decay, it is redeposited in the soil in the form of phytoliths (from Greek, “plant stone”), which are rigid, microscopic structures of varying sizes and shapes. These phytoliths are naturally decay-resistant and are thus preserved in soil and other contexts, ready to be discovered and examined by archaeologists thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years later. (Popular Archaeology)

This 1,600-Year-Old Goblet Shows that the Romans Were Nanotechnology Pioneers

The colorful secret of a 1,600-year-old Roman chalice at the British Museum is the key to a super­sensitive new technology that might help diagnose human disease or pinpoint biohazards at security checkpoints. The glass chalice, known as the Lycurgus Cup because it bears a scene involving King Lycurgus of Thrace, appears jade green when lit from the front but blood-red when lit from behind—a property that puzzled scientists for decades after the museum acquired the cup in the 1950s. The mystery wasn’t solved until 1990, when researchers in England scrutinized broken fragments under a microscope and discovered that the Roman artisans were nanotechnology pioneers: They’d impregnated the glass with particles of silver and gold, ground down until they were as small as 50 nanometers in diameter, less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table salt. The exact mixture of the precious metals suggests the Romans knew what they were doing—“an amazing feat,” says one of the researchers, archaeologist Ian Freestone of University College London. (smithsonianmag.com)

Richard III’s skeleton came within inches of destruction

A team from the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) have discovered during a second, follow-up dig, a massive disturbance at the Grey Friars site where the bones of the medieval monarch were found last year. The news comes one year on from when archaeologists began the Search for Richard III at the Grey Friars site on 25 August last year.  (Phys.org)

Researcher offers fresh insights into the Dead Sea Scrolls

New research conducted by a Trinity College academic in Jerusalem offers new insights into one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is concerned with the mystery of existence. Dr Benjamin Wold, Assistant Professor in New Testament at the Department of Religions & Theology, has been conducting research on the Dead Sea Scrolls known as “4QInstruction” which is believed to have been composed around the mid-2nd century BC. Despite considerable efforts to reconstruct this scroll from multiple copies, experts believe that only about 30 per cent of the document remains. Found in the remaining passages are frequent admonitions to understand the “mystery of existence.” (Phys.org)

Bandelier to Open Popular Archaeological Site

One of the most popular sites at Bandelier National Monument is set to reopen Monday. Accessible only by a series wooden ladders and steep stone steps, the kiva at the Alcove House site is located at the edge of a niche some 14 stories above the canyon floor. The site was closed in April due to concerns over structural stability of the kiva. The walls of the structure had loosened and there were other signs of severe erosion. Although the kiva itself will remain closed, park officials said visitors will be able to climb the ladders that lead to the site and take in the view from 140 feet above the canyon floor. (ABC News)

Lincoln Castle archaeologists to extract sarcophagus

Archaeologists are preparing to extract a sarcophagus discovered at Lincoln Castle and thought to contain “somebody terribly important”. The stone sarcophagus, believed to date from about AD900, was found alongside the remains of a church which was previously unknown. Archaeologists have been on site for almost a year and their work came to an end this week. They believe the sarcophagus could contain a Saxon king or bishop. (BBC News)

Feasting and fighting: the long-lost secrets of Beowulf

The dark secrets of the legend of Beowulf, England’s oldest work of epic literature, are gradually emerging from under a field in eastern Denmark. Archaeologists in the country’s earliest royal ‘capital’ – Lejre, 23 miles west of modern Copenhagen – are investigating the joys of elite Dark Age life in and around what was probably the great royal feasting hall at the violent epicentre of the Beowulf story. (Independent.co.uk)

Early South Americans conquered the Atacama desert

The heart of the Atacama desert is the driest place on Earth. But that didn’t prevent the first settlers of South America from setting up home there more than 12,000 years ago. Aside from Antarctica, South America was the last continent that modern humans colonised, says Claudio Latorre of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. The first settlers arrived from North America at least 14,000 years ago, but their route south is a mystery. Most researchers assume they travelled through fertile corridors, perhaps down the west coast where seafood was plentiful, at least until you hit the desert. “Extreme environments, such as the Atacama, were naturally assumed to be barriers,” says Latorre. “This was not the case.” (NewScientist)

August 19th, 2013

World’s oldest temple built to worship the dog star

THE world’s oldest temple, Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey, may have been built to worship the dog star, Sirius. The 11,000-year-old site consists of a series of at least 20 circular enclosures, although only a few have been uncovered since excavations began in the mid-1990s. Each one is surrounded by a ring of huge, T-shaped stone pillars, some of which are decorated with carvings of fierce animals. Two more megaliths stand parallel to each other at the centre of each ring. (New Scientist)

Handaxe Design Reveals Distinct Neanderthal Cultures

A study by a postgraduate researcher at the University of Southampton has found that Neanderthals were more culturally complex than previously acknowledged. Two cultural traditions existed among Neanderthals living in what is now northern Europe between 115,000 to 35,000 years ago. (Science Daily)

Hot summer unearths Roman discoveries in Wales

A rare Roman fort and marching camp have been discovered in Wales by aerial archaeologists during the hot summer. The major Roman fort complex was spotted on parched grassland near Brecon, Powys, and the marching camp near Caerwent in Monmouthshire. Aerial archaeologist Toby Driver said he could not believe his eyes when he spotted the fort from the air. (BBC News)

Changing Climate May Have Driven Collapse of Civilizations in Late Bronze Age

Climate change may have driven the collapse of once-flourishing Eastern Mediterranean civilizations towards the end of the 13th century BC, according to research published August 14 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by David Kaniewski from the University of Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France and colleagues from other institutions. (Science Daily)

Mystery dagger molds imply ancient links to northern China

Ancient molds for daggers with a double-ringed pommel and a straight blade, which have no precedent in Japan or even the nearby Korean Peninsula, have been unearthed at an archaeological site in this western city, cultural property officials said. The Shiga Prefectural Association for Cultural Heritage said Aug. 8 the finds from the Kami-Goten site likely date from between 350 B.C. and A.D. 300. (The Asahi Shimbun)

Mystery Badger Leads Archaeologists To Medieval Burial Site

Archaeologists who unearthed the tombs of two medieval lords are crediting a badger living underneath a farm in the Brandenburg town of Stolpe with an assist on the discovery, various media outlets are reporting. The 12th century burial site is home to a pair of Slavic lords, as well as a cache of artifacts including a sword, bronze bowls, an ornate belt buckle and skeletal remains, UPI reported early last week. While researchers Lars Wilhelm and Hendrikje Ring were the humans in charge of the expedition, however, they unlikely wouldn’t have found the graves without the help of the short-legged omnivore. (RedOrbit)

Nara researcher finds oldest weights in Japan

Archaeologist Susumu Morimoto recently made a landmark discovery that could change today’s views of Japan’s ancient measuring system and of the Yayoi Period (300 B.C. to 300). The head of the International Cooperation Section at the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties discovered that what were believed to be grinding stones from the first half of Yayoi, about 2,400 years ago, are actually weights for scales. (Japan Times)

The Race to Save Petra From Its Own Success

A victim of its own success and fragility, the World Heritage site of Petra is currently under assessment to limit the safety risks it poses to both tourists and its local population. A two-and-a-half year UNESCO project, which was launched in July 2012 to monitor the slopes in the Siq as a response to the instability of its sandstone rocks, unearthed other underlying challenges facing the site, according to UNESCO. (Skift.com)

August 11th, 2013

Tomb of a Powerful Moche Priestess-Queen Found in Peru

Some 1,200 years ago, a prominent Moche woman was laid to rest with great pomp and ceremony. Now archaeologists have uncovered her tomb along with clues that testify to her privileged status and the power she once wielded. The discovery—made over the last couple of weeks at the site of San José de Moro in the Jequetepeque River valley of northern Peru—is one of several that have revolutionized ideas about the roles women played in Moche society. (National Geographic)

Laois ‘bog body’ said to be world’s oldest

The mummified remains of a body found in a Laois bog two years ago have been found to date back to 2,000BC, making it the oldest “bog body” discovered anywhere in the world. The 4,000-year-old remains, which predate the famed Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun by nearly 700 years, are those of a young adult male. He is believed to have met a violent death in some sort of ritual sacrifice. (The Irish Times)

Temple of Apollo to be excavated again

Restoration and excavation works have begun at the Apollo Temple in the Aegean province of Aydın’s Didim district. The excavations continue with the support of Germany’s Halle University, İzmir University and the German Archeology Institute. The excavations will continue for 4 weeks. The excavation work that has been conducted in the temple for 106 years by the German Archaeology Institute was canceled this year for the storage and restoration of materials unearthed during this process. (Hurriyet Daily News)

Search for 1760 Bray School turns up something even older

Mark Kostro stood in the back yard of Brown Hall, looking down at a hole in the ground. Even at a glance, the hole was different from the other features investigated by the students and professional archaeologists who were spending a second summer working behind the William & Mary residence hall in a quest to find archaeological evidence of the Bray School, the 18th-century institution established for the education of free and enslaved black children. (The Virginia Gazette)

Coca, liquor: death meal for Inca teenager – Samples of hair, X-ray offer fresh insights

Scientists have reconstructed in unprecedented detail how a 13-year-old mummified Inca maiden received increasing amounts of coca plant extracts and alcohol before she became a victim of child sacrifice nearly 600 years ago in the Andes mountains. An international team of researchers has used samples of her hair and X-ray images to provide fresh insights into the final months of the teen, found in a mountaintop shrine in northwest Argentina in 1999 along with the frozen remains of a younger boy and a girl. (The Telegraph)

Grisly human trophies at East Lothian hill fort

Broxmouth hill fort in East Lothian, which had first been identified from aerial photographs, was examined before the site was destroyed by a cement works. It had been known that there had been a community of a couple of hundred people living at the fort for almost 1,000 years before the site was abandoned when the Romans left. (The Scotsman)

‘Mona Lisa’s’ identity could be revealed through DNA testing

The mystery of “Mona Lisa’s” real-life muse, which has spawned centuries of speculation, could be solved through DNA testing. Researchers on Friday opened a family tomb in Florence, Italy, to help confirm the identity of Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo, Leonardo da Vinci’s neighbor who is believed to be the woman behind the enigmatic smile. Archaeologists cut a hole in the family crypt where Lisa Gherardini’s husband and sons are buried. (HrTicket.com)

July 21st, 2013

Ancient monument adds spicy twist to Maya ‘Game of Thrones’ saga

Archaeologists say a 1,450-year-old stone monument discovered beneath a Maya temple in Guatemala bears hieroglyphs that hint at a multigenerational tale of power reminiscent of “A Game of Thrones.” “‘Game of Thrones’ … George Lucas … Steven Spielberg … Nobody could write this story the way the Maya actually lived it,” David Freidel, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, told NBC News. (NBCNews.com)

Chimpanzees and orangutans remember distant past events

Chimpanzees and orangutans were able to remember past events when presented with sensory reminders, a new study shows. Both species found where a useful tool was hidden three years after performing a task only four times. They were also able to recall a unique event two weeks later. The team say their work, published in Current Biology, shows memory for past events is not unique to humans. Chimps and orangutans were presented with two boxes in different rooms, one of which had useful tools, the other useless ones. In order to get a reward they had to successfully retrieve the useful tools. (BBC News)

Archaeologists find remains of sacrificed woman in Peruvian ruins

Archaeologists from the Wiese Foundation, directed by Régulo Franco Jordán, who discovered the Lady of Cao, witnessed an unprecedented event. About one month ago, the group found the remains of a sacrificed woman in the upper platform of the ruins known as Cao while they were excavating the ceremonial floor. The ruins form part of the archaeological complex known as El Brujo, located in La Libertad. (Peru This Week)

Mysterious 2,000-year-old graves, pyramid ruins found in Mexico

Construction work in eastern Mexico exposed an ancient settlement, including 30 skeletons and the ruins of a pyramid, believed to be up to 2,000 years old, archaeology officials announced. At the site of the graves in the town of Jaltipan, southeast of Veracruz, archaeologists also found clay figurines, jade beads, mirrors and animal remains, according to the National Anthropology and History Institute, or INAH. (NBCNews.com)

July 7th, 2013

Lost cities

Over the past few months, a spate of reports has emerged about the discoveries of several so-called lost cities — most notably Ciudad Blanca in Honduras, Heracleion off the coast of Egypt and Chactun in Mexico. Much of this is due to technological advances: satellite imagery, aerial photography and Google Earth have all aided in the detection of heretofore unseen archaeological sites. No technology, however, approaches the impact of lidar, a light-and-radar machine that can pierce through the thickest, highest forests and vegetation within minutes and has only recently been used in the hunt for lost cities. It was lidar that led explorers to what they call Ciudad Blanca. (New York Post)

Mexican researchers extract intact DNA from Palenque’s Red Queen

The osseous remains of the Red Queen, the enigmatic character from Lakamha, “Place of the big waters”, today known as Palenque, in Chiapas, are being scientifically analyzed in order to date the burial in a more precise manner. It is still unknown as to whether the Red Queen was the wife of the celebrated dignitary Pakal II or if she was a ruler of that ancient Mayan metropolis. (Archaeology News Network)

5,000-year-old pyramid destroyed in Lima

Archaeologists blame two building companies for destroying part of ancient pyramid in the Lima district of San Martin de Porres. The pyramid El Paraiso, located near the river Chillon, is one of the oldest structures constructed in the Americas, made up of 12 pyramids and covering over 64 hectares. (Peru This Week)

Georgia’s rich maritime history largely unknown

he wind and the waves peeled back layers of Cumberland Island sand last December to reveal a piece of history: the wooden bones of a long-lost cargo ship. Archaeologists surmised from the gunnel and wooden nails that the 100-foot-long vessel was at least 150 years old, possibly a blockade runner used during the Civil War to transport guns, food and soldiers past Union forces. (Savannah Now)

Scientists want to study Bulls Scarp, ocean-bottom archaeological site that was Ice Age coast

Anyone who stood on a rock ledge a few hundred feet above an ocean-swept river delta could have watched for walruses or whales among the icebergs and searched for woolly mammoths tracking across the barren savannah behind. And those people might well have left traces — thousands of years ago, about 60 miles from Charleston, offshore. Bulls Scarp could be the most fascinating and important archaeological site waiting to be surveyed in the region. There’s just one little problem: That Ice Age rock ledge is under about 140 feet of seawater (The Post and Courier)

June 30th, 2013

First Unlooted Royal Tomb of Its Kind Unearthed in Peru

Three queens were buried with golden treasures, human sacrifices. It was a stunning discovery: the first unlooted imperial tomb of the Wari, the ancient civilization that built South America’s earliest empire between 700 and 1000 A.D. Yet it wasn’t happiness that Milosz Giersz felt when he first glimpsed gold in the dim recesses of the burial chamber in northern Peru. (National Geographic)

Mummies reveal ancient nicotine habit

The hair of mummies from the town of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile reveals the people in the region had a nicotine habit spanning from at least 100 B.C. to A.D. 1450. (NBC News)

Museum visitors can ‘unwrap’ a mummy

A museum in Sweden will digitise its mummy collection in 3D to allow visitors to unwrap a real mummy in digital form. The mummies from Medelhavsmuseet in Stockholm will be digitised by technology which uses photos and X-ray scans to create 3D models. The permanent exhibition is scheduled to open in the spring of 2014. (BBC News)

June 25th, 2013

Colonial America’s Oldest Unsolved Murder

When archaeologists in Virginia uncovered the skeletal remains in 1996 of one of Jamestown’s first settlers — a young European male designated as JR102C in the catalog — they said he was the victim in what was perhaps Colonial America’s oldest unsolved murder. At the time, archaeologist William Kelso, now director of archaeological research and interpretation at Jamestown Rediscovery, reported that “the lead bullet and shot fragments lodged in his lower right leg contained enough force to fracture his tibia and fibula bones, rupturing a major artery below the knee. JR would have bled to death within minutes.” (NPR)

Why 2 Birds in the Hand May Be Better Than a “Hobbit” Skull (in a Cave Deposit, at Least)

The discovery in 2003 of Homo floresiensis, affectionately referred to as a ‘hobbit’, took scientists worldwide by surprise, and challenged many things thought to be understood about human evolution. Intense scientific debates followed about the validity of Homo floresiensis and its status as a separate species, and many of these debates continue to this day. (Scientific American)

For Its Latest Beer, a Craft Brewer Chooses an Unlikely Pairing: Archaeology

The beer was full of bacteria, warm and slightly sour. y contemporary standards, it would have been a spoiled batch here at Great Lakes Brewing Company, a craft beer maker based in Ohio, where machinery churns out bottle after bottle of dark porters and pale ales. But lately, Great Lakes has been trying to imitate a bygone era. Enlisting the help of archaeologists at the University of Chicago, the company has been trying for more than year to replicate a 5,000-year-old Sumerian beer using only clay vessels and a wooden spoon. (NYTimes.com)

Unique gold figurine of naked woman found in Denmark

A small figurine depicting a slim, naked woman was recently found in a Danish field. Strangely, this is the fifth in a series of tiny golden human figurines found recently in the area. (ScienceNordic)

A Section of an 1,800 Year Old Road was Exposed in Jerusalem

An ancient road leading from Yafo to Jerusalem, which dates to the Roman period (second–fourth centuries CE), was exposed this past fortnight in the Beit Hanina neighborhood in northern Jerusalem. The road remains were revealed in an archaeological excavation the IAA conducted in Beit Hanina prior to the installation of a drainage pipe by the Moriah Company. (Antiquities.org.il)

June 11th, 2013

Archaeologists Say 400 Animal Species Were Offered to Gods in Tenochtitlan

Mexican archaeologists have identified more than 400 animal species in some 60 offerings made to the gods at the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, including molluscs, fish, birds, reptiles and mammals, the National Institute of Anthropology and History, or INAH, said. The scientists have recovered, “for example, fish from coral reefs in the Atlantic Ocean, reptiles including crocodiles, snakes and turtles, as well as birds like toucans and quetzals, and large mammals from the tropics like the jaguar,” INAH biologist Norma Valentin Maldonado said Friday. (Latino Daily News)

New North America Viking Voyage Discovered

Some 1,000 years ago, the Vikings set off on a voyage to Notre Dame Bay in modern-day Newfoundland, Canada, new evidence suggests. The journey would have taken the Vikings, also called the Norse, from L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of the same island to a densely populated part of Newfoundland and may have led to the first contact between Europeans and the indigenous people of the New World. (Live Science)

Ancient Irish texts show volcanic link to cold weather

Researchers have been able to trace the impact of volcanic eruptions on the climate over a 1200 year period by assessing ancient Irish texts. The international team compared entries in these medieval annals with ice core data indicating volcanic eruptions. Of 38 volcanic events, 37 were associated with directly observed cold weather extremes recorded in the chronicles. The report is published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. (BBC News)

The Iceman Suffered Brain Damage Before Death

An injury to the head, not an arrow wound, may have killed Ötzi the Iceman, the 5,300-year-old mummy found in the Italian Alps, says a new paleoproteomic study into the brain of Europe’s oldest natural human mummy. The protein investigation appears to support a 2007 research into the mummy’s brain. The study pointed to a cerebral trauma as the cause of death. (Discovery News)

Mysterious Monument Found Beneath the Sea of Galilee

The shores of the Sea of Galilee, located in the North of Israel, are home to a number of significant archaeological sites. Now researchers from Tel Aviv University have found an ancient structure deep beneath the waves as well. Researchers stumbled upon a cone-shaped monument, approximately 230 feet in diameter, 39 feet high, and weighing an estimated 60,000 tons, while conducting a geophysical survey on the southern Sea of Galilee. (Science Daily)

Ape-like feet ‘found in study of museum visitors’

Scientists have discovered that about one in thirteen people have flexible ape-like feet. A team studied the feet of 398 visitors to the Boston Museum of Science. The results show differences in foot bone structure similar to those seen in fossils of a member of the human lineage from two million years ago. (BBC News)

Evidence Of Escape Tunnel Found At Sobibor, Nazi Death Camp Where 250,000 Jews Were Murdered

Archeologists excavating a former Nazi death camp in Poland believe they have found evidence of an escape tunnel created by a group of prisoners. The rudimentary tunnel was first located in May at the Sobibor death camp, near what is now the eastern border of Poland. Dug about five feet beneath the surface and wide enough for a human, the tunnel stretched 32 feet from a barracks to beneath one of the barbwire fences surrounding the camp, according to the Telegraph. (Huffington Post)

June 6th, 2013

Bone Tumor Found in Neanderthal Rib

For the first time, a bone tumor has been found in a Neanderthal rib bone dated to about 120,000 years ago. The rib was recovered at a site near Krapina in present-day Croatia. The tumor, a form of cancer called fibrous dysplasia, predates previous evidence of such by more than 100,000 years. Prior to this, the earliest known bone cancers were detected in samples approximately 1,000-4,000 years old. Fibrous dysplasia in modern-day humans occurs more frequently than other bone tumors, but study author David Frayer of the University of Kansas says that the evidence for cancer almost never shows up in the human fossil record. This may be partly due to the fact that the fossil record accounts for a comparatively small sampling of human species or human ancestors. (Popular Archaeology)

Fossil Discovery Will Rewrite Primate and Human Evolutionary History, Say Scientists

An international research team has announced the discovery of the world’s oldest known fossil primate skeleton, an animal that lived about 55 million years ago during the Eocene Epoch in present-day China. Smaller than today’s smallest primate (the pygmy mouse lemur), Archicebus achilles, as they named it, was unearthed from an ancient lake bed in central China’s Hubei Province near the Yangtze River. (Popular Archaeology)

How Timbuktu’s manuscripts were smuggled to safety

When Islamist rebels set fire to two libraries in Timbuktu earlier this year, many feared the city’s treasure trove of ancient manuscripts had been destroyed. But many of the texts had already been removed from the buildings and were at that very moment being smuggled out of the city, under the rebels’ noses. (BBC News)

2nd-century wooden mask unearthed in Nara, oldest yet found

Once used to hide a face, a wooden mask fragment recently discovered here and currently on public display hints at ancient cultural links between this part of western Japan and China, archaeologists said May 30. (The Asashi Shimbun)

Roman Seawater Concrete Holds the Secret to Cutting Carbon Emissions

The chemical secrets of a concrete Roman breakwater that has spent the last 2,000 years submerged in the Mediterranean Sea have been uncovered by an international team of researchers led by Paulo Monteiro of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. (Science Daily)

June 4th, 2013

Earliest Archaeological Evidence of Winemaking in France Discovered

A team of researchers from France and the U.S. have uncovered evidence for the earliest winemaking industry in France, a country long well known for its preeminence in the production of fine wines. While investigating the ancient port site of Lattara in southern France, archaeologists uncovered imported ancient Etruscan amphorae and a limestone press platform. (Popular Archaeology)

Diet Change After 3.5 Million Years Ago a Gamechanger for Human Ancestors, Say Scientists

It has long been theorized by human evolutionists that the human diet, and how it may have changed over hundreds of thousands of years, was a central element in the successful emergence of modern humanity from the biological and behavioral backdrop of the animal world. Now, the results of a series of four newly completed studies by a team of two dozen researchers from several institutions have shed more light on the ‘what’ and ‘when’ of these changes. (Popular Archaeology)

Eight bronze age boats surface at Fens creek in record find

A fleet of eight prehistoric boats, including one almost nine metres long, has been discovered in a Cambridgeshire quarry on the outskirts of Peterborough. The vessels, all deliberately sunk more than 3,000 years ago, are the largest group of bronze age boats ever found in the same UK site and most are startlingly well preserved. (The Guardian)

ORIGINAL COLOURS OF PHOENICIAN IVORY CARVINGS SHINE AGAIN

The ivory carvings and plaques found at the 8th century BCE Phoenician city of Arslan Tash — “Stone Lion” — may appear as flat monochrome objects when viewed in museums today, but once they shone with brilliant blue, red and several other colours as well as glittering with real gold paint. (Past Horizons)

Gladiators of Aydın to appear on 3D screens

The Aydın Archeology Museum starts a new project to exhibit ancient gladiator mosaics on screens. Ancient mosaics and excavated blocks from the Orthosia ancient city, which include many gladiator patterns and shapes, have been portrayed onscreen with animations and detailed visuals (Hurriyet Daily News)

How to Really Eat Like a Hunter-Gatherer: Why the Paleo Diet Is Half-Baked

We are not biologically identical to our Paleolithic predecessors, nor do we have access to the foods they ate. And deducing dietary guidelines from modern foraging societies is difficult because they vary so much by geography, season and opportunity (Scientific American)

May 30th, 2013

Real, or Desert Mirage?

It is considered the driest desert in the world. Without provision, a person would not last long in this hostile place, where after a few days without water one just might hallucinate, might see things that simply were not there. And it could be that a small group of people may be seeing things in this place that are not what they seem to be — lines and walls on a landscape, remains of structures that may or may not be man-made. The site, located in the Atacama desert, a 105,000 square kilometer (41,000 sq mi) plateau along the Pacific coast of Chile, has attracted the focused attention of only a few to date. Most professional news organizations and journals will not touch the story, presumably because there is not enough solid information and evidence about the site advanced by any professionally recognized archaeologists or scholars to justify the risk of publishing even an acknowledgement of its existence. (Popular Archaeology)

Ancient Egyptians accessorized with meteorites

Researchers at The Open University (OU) and The University of Manchester have found conclusive proof that Ancient Egyptians used meteorites to make symbolic accessories. The evidence comes from strings of iron beads which were excavated in 1911 at the Gerzeh cemetery, a burial site approximately 70km south of Cairo. Dating from 3350 to 3600BC, thousands of years before Egypt’s Iron Age, the bead analysed was originally assumed to be from a meteorite owing to its composition of nickel-rich iron. But this hypothesis was challenged in the 1980s when academics proposed that much of the early worldwide examples of iron use originally thought to be of meteorite-origin were actually early smelting attempts. (EurekAlert!)

Archaeologist treats guests to 1,000-year-old recipes

Prehistoric Museum archaeologist Tim Riley displays some of the Fremont cuisine he prepared. (SunAdvocate)

‘World’s oldest Torah’ scroll found in Italy

The University of Bologna in Italy has found what it says may be the oldest complete scroll of Judaism’s most important text, the Torah. The scroll was in the university library but had been mislabelled, a professor at the university says. It was previously thought the scroll was no more that a few hundred years old. However, after carbon dating tests, the university has said the text may have been written more than 850 years ago. (BBC News)

Ancient First Nations site damaged during BC Hydro work

Members of a Nanaimo First Nations group are outraged after crews contracted by BC Hydro damaged a documented ancient rock art site during work recently. Douglas White, chief of the Snuneymuxw First Nation said the damage is disrespectful of native heritage and he doesn’t understand how crews could make the mistake, since existing petroglyph rock art sites are documented and protected by legislation. (Journal of Commerce)