(Science Alert) Among the fragments of an ancient Mesoamerican mural, archaeologists in Guatemala have uncovered the earliest unequivocal evidence of a Maya sacred calendar.
On one tiny fragment of a mural that once adorned the temple wall, traces of an animal's head can be seen beneath a black dot and solid line – symbols representing '7 Deer', one of the 260 days in the calendar.
Other historic records of this sacred calendar have been found in Central America before, but they have proved difficult to date with any accuracy.
The finding is a very rare example of a clear hieroglyphic day of the year, which was written sometime between 200 and 300 BCE, according to radiocarbon analysis.
That's more than a thousand years older than other calendar hieroglyphs found elsewhere in Guatemala. And given how 'mature' the script appears, researchers suspect the calendar was in use long before this one date was written down.
(Inverse) THE REMOTE SCOTTISH ISLANDS of Orkney might not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of a cultural hub. But thousands of years ago, it was home to ancient peoples who built monuments, created art, and even hosted parties.
At the beginning of the Bronze Age, about 4,500 years ago, the islands saw a population shift. Primarily female migrants from other parts of Europe began to make their way to isolated Orkney.
…
They (researchers) discovered that a wave of people migrated to Orkney during the early Bronze Age — but sex seemed to be a determining factor in who was a newcomer.
Lineages from male individuals appeared to come from Neolithic-era peoples who had lived on the islands for some time. In contrast, female lineages could often be traced back to continental Europe.
That means women were often the ones packing up and sailing to the islands, while men stayed in place. “I think this is due to the inheritance system here,” study co-author Graeme Wilson tells Inverse. “The men wanted to retain control of the farms so [they] sought female incomers.”
The Future of Egyptology is in Egyptian Hands by Ali Abu Dashish
Introduction:
(The National) The major recent archaeological discoveries in Egypt, most notably a series of coffins discovered at Saqqara, just outside Cairo, in May, are evidence of the genius of this generation of Egyptian archaeologists, restorers and Egyptologists. It is fitting that the objects they are unearthing and studying are particularly remarkable. Each new discovery ― and there have been many recently ― sheds more light on how the ancient Egyptians lived and excelled in the sciences, including medicine, engineering, astronomy, arithmetic, pharmacology and mummification, which until now has been a baffling secret.
Discovering burial sites, of course, is nothing new for the country. Even the pharaohs themselves were at points excavating Egyptian antiquities from earlier periods. After all, the term “Ancient Egypt” encompasses a period of more than 3,000 years. And not all of the “excavations” during that time were friendly. For millennia thieves have targeted tombs. This is why the pharaohs were always looking for a safe place to bury their dead, and helps to explain the existence of epic sites such as Saqqara, which was used as a burial site from prehistoric times until the Islamic era.
But the unearthing and preservation of Egypt’s cultural heritage, fortunately, takes far more constructive forms today, thanks to the careful work of the country’s archaeologists, Egyptologists and historians. And keeping the discipline vibrant is in large part about training the right people and generating in-country expertise.
When the Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass took over the Ministry of Antiquities in 2011, his main concern was just that: for Egyptian archaeologists to learn the art of excavation and restoration. He set up excavation schools and taught more than 500 Egyptian archaeologists the arts of research and excavation until they reached the same level of ability as foreign experts, even surpassing them.
The best evidence of this fact is today’s trove of recent discoveries.
Winemaking practices in coastal Italy during the Roman period involved using native grapes for making wine in jars waterproofed with imported tar pitch, according to a study published June 29, 2022 in PLOS ONE by Louise Chassouant of Avignon University and colleagues.
The authors examined three Roman period amphorae—wine jars—from a seabed deposit near the modern harbor of San Felice Circeo, Italy, about 90 km southeast of Rome. A combination of chemical markers, plant tissue residue, and pollen provided evidence of grape derivatives and pine within the jars. The evidence suggests the amphorae were used in both red and white winemaking processes, while the pine was used to create tar for waterproofing the jars and perhaps also flavoring the wine, as has been observed at similar archaeological sites.
The grapevine pollen matches wild species from the area, suggesting these winemakers were using local plants, although it remains unclear whether these were domesticated at the time. The pine tar, on the other hand, is non-local, and was likely imported from Calabria or Sicily based on other historical sources.
The authors emphasize the benefit of this multidisciplinary approach to characterize cultural practices from archaeological artifacts. In this case, the identification of plant remains, chemical analysis, historical and archaeological records, amphorae design, and previous findings all contributed to the conclusions of this analysis, providing an example of methodology for interpreting a history beyond the artifacts that would not be possible using a single technique.
Earliest Pacific seafarers were matrilocal society, study suggests
Thu 30 Jun 2022
The world’s earliest seafarers who set out to colonise remote Pacific islands nearly 3,000 years ago were a matrilocal society with communities organised around the female lineage, analysis of ancient DNA suggests.
The research, based on genetic sequencing of 164 ancient individuals from 2,800 to 300 years ago, suggested that some of the earliest inhabitants of islands in Oceania had population structures in which women almost always remained in their communities after marriage, while men left their mother’s community to live with that of their wife. This pattern is strikingly different from that of patrilocal societies, which appeared to be the norm in ancient populations in Europe and Africa.
“The peopling of the Pacific is a longstanding and important mystery as it’s the last great expansion of humans into unoccupied areas,” said David Reich, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, who led the work.
“Today, traditional communities in the Pacific have both patrilocal and matrilocal population structures and there was a debate about what the common practice was in the ancestral populations,” he said. “These results suggest that in the earliest seafarers, matrilocality was the rule.”
By 50,000 years ago, populations of ancient humans had arrived and spread through Australia, New Guinea and Solomon Islands. But it wasn’t until after 3,500 years ago that people, probably living in what is now Taiwan, developed long-distance canoes and ventured out into open ocean, arriving in Remote Oceania. This expansion included the region called Micronesia – about 2,000 small islands north of the equator including Guam, the Marshall Islands, the Caroline Islands, Palau, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
In Pompeii, Archaeologists Uncover Ancient Pregnant Tortoise
June 30, 2022
Nearly 2,000 years ago, a pregnant tortoise took refuge in an abandoned home in Pompeii. But then Mount Vesuvius erupted, covering her in volcanic rock and ash. Now, archaeologists excavating the ancient city have found the remains of the 5.5-inch-long Hermann’s tortoise and her egg.
The findings add a new layer of detail to what experts know about the period between 62 C.E., when Pompeii was hit with an earthquake, and 79 C.E., when it was devastated by the volcanic eruption. Archaeologists discovered the remains in a part of the city that was being repurposed for public baths.
Archaeologists think the tortoise made her way into a building that was too badly damaged by the earthquake to be rebuilt, but that she had not yet laid her eggs by the time Mount Vesuvius erupted. If tortoises cannot find a suitable habitat in which to lay their eggs, they can actually retain them—but if they wait too long, they will eventually die, the team explains in a statement.
“This lets us reflect on Pompeii in this phase after the earthquake but before the eruption, when many homes were being rebuilt, the whole city was a construction site, and evidently some spaces were so unused that wild animals could roam, enter and try to lay their eggs,” Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii archaeological site, tells Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press (AP).
Though the tortoise could have been a household pet, experts say she was more likely to have been a wild tortoise that made her way into the city from the countryside. After carefully removing the remains from the site, researchers will study them further in the lab.
In Search of the Lost City of Natounia July 20, 2022
Introduction:
(EurekAlert) The mountain fortress of Rabana-Merquly in modern Iraqi Kurdistan was one of the major regional centres of the Parthian Empire, which extended over parts of Iran and Mesopotamia approximately 2,000 years ago. This is a conclusion reached by a team of archaeologists led by Dr Michael Brown, a researcher at the Institute of Prehistory, Protohistory and Near-Eastern Archaeology of Heidelberg University. Together with Iraqi colleagues, Brown studied the remains of the fortress. Their work provides important insights into the settlement structures and history of the Parthians, about whom there is surprisingly little knowledge, emphasises Dr Brown, even though the annals of history record them as a major power. Furthermore, Rabana-Merquly may be the lost city of Natounia.
Situated on the southwest flanks of Mt. Piramagrun in the Zagros Mountains, the stone fortress of Rabana-Merquly comprises not only the nearly four-kilometre-long fortifications but also two smaller settlements for which it is named. Because of its high position on the mountain, mapping the site was possible only with drones. Within the framework of multiple excavation campaigns conducted from 2009 and most recently between 2019 and 2022, the international team of researchers was able to study the archaeological remains on site. Structures that have survived to this day suggest a military use and include the remains of several rectangular buildings that may have served as barracks. The researchers also found a religious complex possibly dedicated to the Zoroastrian Iranian goddess Anahita.
Humans Were Drinking Milk Around 6,000 Years Before Most Evolved to Digest It by Tom Hale
July 27, 2022
Introduction:
(IFL Science) Prehistoric people acquired a taste for milk thousands of years before humans evolved the genetic trait that allows us to digest it without sore stomachs and gastrointestinal upsets, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature.
It was previously assumed that humans evolved a tolerance to lactose, also known as lactase persistence, because they started to drink milk more and more as agriculture become more prolific across Eurasia. However, to the researchers’ surprise, this was found to be not true.
The study authors analyzed thousands of animal fat residues found on over 13,000 fragments of pottery from 554 archaeological sites across Europe. Microscopic traces of milk on the pottery shards suggests that human consumption of milk was, in fact, high in Neolithic Europe from around 7,000 BCE onwards.
This was a time before the overwhelming majority of the population was able to digest it. The sugar in milk – lactose – is turned into glucose and galactose by the enzyme lactase. Without the enzyme, or with insufficient amounts of it, lactose isn’t broken down and fuels bacterial fermentation in the gut, leading to gas, diarrhoea, and stomach pain.
Unexpectedly, genetic evidence from prehistoric European and Asian people showed that the gene that codes for the production of lactase was not common until around 1,000 BCE, nearly 4,000 years after it was first detected around 4,700 BCE. It then spread across the continent like wildfire within just a few thousand years.
A new analysis of remains from medieval Cambridge shows that local Augustinian friars were almost twice as likely as the city's general population to be infected by intestinal parasites.
This is despite most Augustinian monasteries of the period having latrine blocks and hand-washing facilities, unlike the houses of ordinary working people.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge's Department of Archaeology say the difference in parasitic infection may come down to monks manuring crops in friary gardens with their own feces, or purchasing fertilizer containing human or pig excrement.
The study, published today in the International Journal of Paleopathology, is the first to compare parasite prevalence in people from the same medieval community who were living different lifestyles, and so might have differed in their infection risk.
The population of medieval Cambridge consisted of residents of monasteries, friaries and nunneries of various major Christian orders, along with merchants, traders, craftsmen, laborers, farmers, and staff and students at the early university.
Analysis of Everyday Tools Challenges Long-held Ideas About What Drove Major Changes in Ancient Greek Society
August 22, 2022
Introduction:
(EurekAlert)A modern scientific analysis of ancient stone tools is challenging long-held beliefs about what caused radical change on the island of Crete, where the first European state flourished during the Bronze Age: the ‘Minoan civilization.’
About 3,500 years ago, Crete underwent significant cultural transformations, including the adoption of a new language and economic system, burial customs, dress and drinking habits – all of which could be traced to the neighboring Mycenaean Greek mainland.
At roughly the same time, many important sites across the island were destroyed and warriors’ graves appeared at the famed palace of Knossos, leading scholars to long believe that these seismic changes had been the result of a Mycenaean invasion.
A new study, published online in the journal PLOS One questions that theory.
Further extract:
“Rather than wholescale cultural change, our study has found evidence of significant continuity after the alleged invasion. While new practices can be initiated through external forces such as invasion, migration, colonialism, or cross-cultural intermarriage, we also know of examples where locals choose to adopt foreign habits to distinguish themselves within their own society,” says (Tristan) Carter (professor in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University).
Mysterious Script From 4,000 Years Ago May Finally Be Deciphered by Owen Jarus
August 31, 2022
Introduction:
(Science Alert) A mysterious ancient writing system called Linear Elamite, used between about 2300 BCE and 1800 BCE in what is now southern Iran, might have finally been deciphered, although some experts are skeptical about the findings.
What's more, it's unclear whether all the artifacts used to decipher the writings were legally acquired.
Only about 40 known examples of Linear Elamite survive today, making the script challenging to decode, but researchers say they've largely accomplished just that, they wrote in a paper published in July in the journal Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie (German for the Journal of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology).
Key to their decipherment was the analysis of eight inscriptions on silver beakers.
Other research teams had previously decoded different Linear Elamite inscriptions, and the new study's authors built on this previous work by comparing the writing system in the eight Linear Elamite inscriptions with cuneiform (an already-deciphered script used in what is now the Middle East) texts that date to around the same time period and likely contain the names of the same rulers and their titles and use some of the same phrases to describe the rulers.
Debates About Migration Have Never Been Simple – Just Look at the Hebrew Bible by Ki-Eun Jang
September , 2022
Introduction:
(The Conversation) Today, the Bible is often invoked during public debates about immigration. From former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to a group of 2,000 rabbis, people have referred to the Bible to explain their differing positions on immigration and refugees. Several specialists in biblical studies have spoken and written about what the text says on the topic.
One thing is clear: Migration matters in the Bible. Stories about it are common – from the Book of Genesis, where the patriarch Abraham obeys God’s command to leave his homeland in Mesopotamia, to the Moabite woman Ruth, who migrates to Bethlehem out of love for her Judean mother-in-law, Naomi, to the Jews’ forced migration to Babylonia.
But these many voices do not necessarily boil down to a single theology or ethical framework. As a scholar of the Hebrew Bible, I study how themes of migration mattered in the making of scripture, as well as in how the text has been circulated, debated and interpreted by readers across the globe.
Discussions about migration are always complicated, because migrants’ real-life experiences do not easily translate into simple bureaucratic categories.
Modern societies defined by the ideas of citizenship and borders tend to classify modern migrants into legal binaries, each with its own rights and restrictions: resident vs. nonresident, documented vs. undocumented, immigrant vs. nonimmigrant. Ancient Israel, too, relied on legal categories to try to make sense of migration.
Shrine with Never-Before-Seen Ritual Discovered in Egyptian Temple by Dr. Alfredo Carpineti
October 7, 2022
Introduction:
(IFL Science) Archaeologists have discovered a shrine in a temple in Egypt that describes a ritual never seen before. It comes from the religious complex of the ancient seaport of Berenike, a city that dates back to the third century BCE. The complex itself is a lot more modern having been built over 700 years later, during the decline and final century of the Western Roman Empire.
The newly found place of worship has been named the "Falcon Shrine" by researchers due to the material found that suggests a ritual function associated with a falcon cult, and dates from the fourth to sixth centuries CE. During this time, the city was partially occupied by the Blemmyes, a nomadic group of people from the Nubian region who had spread to many other areas of Egypt’s Eastern desert.
This finding gives new insight into the religious practices of the Blemmyes and how they merged them with the Egyptian belief system. The most incredible find, giving the shrine its name, was the discovery of 15 falcons – most of them headless – buried within the temple. The burial of mummified falcons has been found in other temples but usually only one on its own. Finding multiple birds together with eggs is a unique discovery.
“The material findings are particularly remarkable and include offerings such as harpoons, cube-shaped statues, and a stele with indications related to religious activities,” Professor Joan Oller Guzmán, the Sikait Project research team director said in a statement.
Among the material findings, the stele is particularly intriguing. The stele is believed to depict a procession of gods and bears an inscription that reads: “It is improper to boil a head in here.” A prohibition such as this in a religious temple has not been seen before in Berenike and implies that performing that ritual in the temple was a profane activity. It was likely performed elsewhere.
Clay Tablet in Turkey Points to ‘Enemy’ Influence on Hittite Empire by Yasuji Nagai
October 20, 2022
Introduction:
(The Asahi Shimbun) An ancient clay tablet found in central Turkey suggests that a little known rival ethnic group was closely involved in the establishment of the Hittite Empire more than 3,000 years ago, Japanese archaeologists said.
Text engraved on the tablet was in the language of the Hurrians, who are believed to have been once powerful enough to vie for hegemony in the ancient Orient with the Hittites and the Egyptians.
“The clay tablet has major implications for the ties between the Hittite royal family and the Hurrians,” said Kimiyoshi Matsumura, a researcher who heads an expedition of the Japanese Institute of Anatolian Archaeology (JIAA).
“We hope to shed light on details of the role that the Hurrians, who must have been a nemesis for the Hittites, played in the formation process of the Hittite Empire, which went on to prosper with its ironmaking technologies, the foundation of our contemporary society.”
The tablet, measuring about 3 centimeters, was unearthed in June near palace remains in Buklukale, the ruins of a Hittite urban settlement in central Anatolia, Turkey, which expedition members believe had ties with the royal family.
Lost Star Catalog of Ancient Times May Have Come to Light by Govert Schilling
October 21, 2022
Introduction:
(Sky & Telescope) Around 130 BC, the great Greek astronomer Hipparchus drew up the very first star catalog ever, containing descriptions and coordinates of some 850 naked-eye stars in the northern sky.
At least, that’s what later sources say – copies of Hipparchus’s list have never been found. Until now, that is. Writing in the Journal of the History of Astronomy, three European scientists claim to have uncovered a small part of the long-lost catalog. “I felt nothing short of awe when I first heard about it,” says astronomy historian and writer William Sheehan.
In the 2nd century AD, Claudius Ptolemy compiled a catalog of 1,025 stars in 48 constellations to include in his magnum opus, Almagest. Ptolemy also hinted at the existence of an earlier listing, some scholars have suggested that Ptolemy’s work was based not on his own observations but on Hipparchus’s catalog.
Hipparchus was born around 190 BC in Nicaea, in what is now northwestern Turkey, but he carried out most of his astronomical work on the island of Rhodes. He made the first estimates of the distances and sizes of the Moon and the Sun, and was the first to discover precession: the slow wobble in the orientation of the Earth’s spin axis. According to astronomy historian Bradley Schaefer (Louisiana State University), Hipparchus was “arguably the best and greatest astronomer in the world before Copernicus.”
“Only one of his many books, The Commentaries, has survived,” says Schaefer, “with the most important loss being his influential star catalog.” That’s why scientists are elated about the new find. “It […] illuminates a crucial moment in the birth of science, when astronomers shifted from simply describing the patterns they saw in the sky to measuring and predicting them,” astronomy historian James Evans (University of Puget Sound, Washington) told Nature.
New excavations in Uppåkra are at the forefront of cutting edge archaeological techniques. By combining big data, data modeling and DNA sequencing, researchers are currently solving significant parts of a historical puzzle. Perhaps we will learn whether the Justinianic Plague, the forerunner of the Black Death, reached Uppåkra. Until now, this has been uncertain.
Torbjörn Ahlström, professor of Historical Osteology at Lund University stands on a hill outside Lund. His gaze falls on the fertile soil that has served people in the area for centuries.
Torbjörn Ahlström is about to start a new project in Uppåkra. Today, it is a quiet village in the countryside of southern Sweden, but earlier in history, it was the most powerful center among the Nordic countries for over 1,000 years (between 100 BCE and the 10th century).
Uppåkra is classified as the largest Iron Age settlement in the Nordic countries, and amongst northern Europe's richest sites for archaeological finds. So far, excavation has been periodic and has covered only a fraction of the area.
UK’s Oldest Human DNA Obtained, Revealing Two Distinct Palaeolithic Populations October 24, 2022
Introduction:
(EurekAlert) The first genetic data from Palaeolithic human individuals in the UK - the oldest human DNA obtained from the British Isles so far - indicates the presence of two distinct groups that migrated to Britain at the end of the last ice age, according to new research.
Published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the new study by UCL Institute of Archaeology, the Natural History Museum and the Francis Crick Institute researchers reveals for the first time that the recolonisation of Britain consisted of at least two groups with distinct origins and cultures.
The study team explored DNA evidence from an individual from Gough’s Cave, Somerset, and an individual from Kendrick’s Cave, North Wales, who both lived more than 13,500 years ago. Very few skeletons of this age exist in Britain, with around a dozen found across six sites in total. The study, which involved radiocarbon dating and analysis as well as DNA extraction and sequencing, shows that it is possible to obtain useful genetic information from some of the oldest human skeletal material in the country.
The authors say that these genome sequences now represent the earliest chapter of the genetic history of Britain, but ancient DNA and proteins promise to take us back even further into human history.
The researchers found that the DNA from the individual from Gough’s Cave, who died about 15,000 years ago, indicates that her ancestors were part of an initial migration into northwest Europe around 16,000 years ago. However, the individual from Kendrick’s Cave is from a later period, around 13,500 years ago, with his ancestry from a western hunter-gatherer group. This group’s ancestral origins are thought to be from the near East, migrating to Britain around 14,000 years ago.
Five Things You May Not Know About King Tutankhamun 100 Years After His Discovery by Dr Alfredo Carpineti, PhD.
November 4, 2022
Introduction:
(IFL Science) One hundred years ago on this day, November 4, the tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamun was discovered. Egyptian workers (and possibly a single boy working away from the main area) found the steps to this extremely well-concealed tomb. This archaeological dig was led by British Egyptologist Howard Carter with the patronage of George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon.
Despite the tomb having been robbed in ancient times, most of its original artifacts were untouched. The discovery provided incredible insights into the material culture of ancient Egypt, plus a deeper understanding of the rites and lifestyles of the upper class of this ancient civilization.
Tutankhamun has now become the symbol of ancient Egypt. His brief life and reign saw the return of Egypt to a polytheistic religion (with many deities worshipped) after the brief proto-monotheism focusing on the sun god Aten being imposed by Tutankhamun’s father Akhenaten.
He became pharaoh when he was either eight or nine, under the viziership of his eventual successor, Ay. He died just a decade later, likely as a result of general poor health, a leg fracture, and a severe malarial infection.
The remainder of the article includes discussion of an iron dagger found in the tomb which was apparently made from a meteorite.
'Exceptional' Find of Ancient Bronze Statues Uncovered in Tuscany by Thomson Reuters
November 8, 2022
Introduction:
(CBC) Archaeologists in Italy have uncovered more than two dozen beautifully preserved bronze statues dating back to ancient Roman times in thermal baths in Tuscany, in what experts are hailing as a sensational find.
The statues were discovered in San Casciano dei Bagni, a hilltop town in the Siena province, about 160 kilometres north of Rome, where archaeologists have been exploring the muddy ruins of an ancient bathhouse since 2019.
"It is a very significant, exceptional finding," dig co-ordinator Jacopo Tabolli, an assistant professor from the University for Foreigners in Siena, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Massimo Osanna, a top Culture Ministry official, called it one of the most remarkable discoveries "in the history of the ancient Mediterranean," and the most important since the Riace Bronzes, a giant pair of ancient Greek warriors, were pulled from the sea off the toe of Italy in 1972.
Tabolli said the statues, depicting Hygieia, Apollo and other Greco-Roman divinities, used to adorn a sanctuary before they were immersed in thermal waters, in a sort of ritual, "probably around the first century AD."
