For Those Interested in Archaeology

Just thought I should try to nudge us back on topic. Hey, have I mentioned before I shook Roy Clarks hand? I have haven't I? It was 1971 so that's old times.
Well im sufficiently impressed!

Hope it wasnt a case of fermenting over the years in storage - Wonder if this was the beginning of the downfall of society??

 

Wasn't sure whether to put this one in the astronuts thread.
"A 7,000-year-old Neolithic settlement in modern-day Greece has for the first time been accurately dated down to the precise years it was built.
The findings could provide a reference point in time to help date other archaeological sites in southeastern Europe.
Archaeologists from the University of Bern in Switzerland were able to date the site, called Dispilio, using a combination of annual growth ring measurements on wooden building components and an additional out-of-this-world method: cosmic rays. Their research is published in the journal Nature Communications.
Dating prehistoric wooden elements uses two methods.
One is dendrochronology, in which tree rings are analysed. A wooden object’s growth rings are impacted by certain climatic and regional conditions which can be compared to other known examples.
“In central Europe, there is a tree-ring chronology that goes back almost 12,500 years into the past – to the year 10,375 BC,” says lead author, Andrej Maczkowski from the Institute of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bern. “However, this chronology only applies to certain regions. There is no consistent chronology for the Mediterranean region.”
The other method is radiocarbon dating, in which the presence of radioactive carbon isotope 14C, or carbon-14, is measured.
Carbon-14 is absorbed by living organisms through their lifetime. When they die, carbon-14 radioactively decays into other atoms.
“However, the accuracy of such classifications is, in the best case, within the range of decades,” Maczkowski adds.
“Until recently, it was therefore believed that dendrochronological dating to the year was only possible if a continuous regional tree-ring chronology was available, which is the case for prehistoric periods in just 3 regions worldwide: this is the southwestern United States, the northern Alpine foothills and England/Ireland,” explains senior author Albert Hafner.
But in 2012, Japanese physicist Fusa Miyake suggested that a massive influx of cosmic rays, such as those produced by solar flares, would increase the amount of 14C in the atmosphere. Such events today might have major impacts on telecommunications and electronics.
These global events in history could be used as “markers” in tree rings. Dozens have been identified, including 2 discovered in 2022: one in 7176 BCE and another in 5259 BCE.
Using the latter of these markers, the archaeologists analysed 787 pieces of timber from Dispilio on Lake Orestida in what is today northern Greece.
They identified 303 years of growth ring chronology for the region and could show settlement and housebuilding at the site over 188 years between 5328 and 5140 BCE.
“The Balkans is therefore the first region in the world to benefit from this paradigm shift and to be able to successfully determine absolute dating independently of a consistent calendar,” says Hafner."
7,000-year-old Neolithic settlement in Greece dated accurately to the year thanks to cosmic rays (cosmosmagazine.com)

 

New species of flying pterosaur reptile discovered in outback Queensland fossil dig - ABC News

 

Famed explorer Ernest Shackleton's last expedition ship found off Canada coast 61 years after sinking - ABC News
This ship has been moving around...

 

Interesting, but you wonder just how accurate given that it says further down-"However, the true gender of the individual is unknown due to the absence of pelvic bones."
"The face of the first man has been revealed 300,000 years after his death.
Scientists reconstructed the oldest known Homo sapien skull found in Morocco, which was missing the lower jaw when it was uncovered in 2017.
The team created a digital scan of the cranium, layering it with soft tissue and skin to produce a man described as being 'strong and serene.'
The ancient skull proved Homo Sapiens appeared 100,000 years earlier than thought and migrated out of Africa before previous evidence had suggested.
Brazilian graphics expert Cicero Moraes completed the recreation after obtaining data from researchers at the Max Planck Institute.
'Initially, I scanned the skull in 3D, using data provided by the researchers of Max Planck Institute.
'Then I proceeded with the facial approximation, which consisted of crossing several approaches, such as anatomical deformation.
'This is where the tomography of a modern human is used, adapting it so that the donor's skull becomes the Jebel Irhoud skull and the deformation ends up generating a compatible face.'
The skull's name stems from the site in which it was found.
The donor skull was also digitized and chosen because it appeared the closest to that of the ancient skull, allowing researchers to fill in the missing parts of the ancient remains.
Further data from modern humans was used to predict the thickness of the soft tissue, and the likely projection of the nose and other facial structures."
Face of world's first human - a 'strong and serene' man - is revealed 300,000 years after his death | Daily Mail Online

 

"A sprawling Native American city stretching six square-miles and home to roughly 20,000 people disappeared from the Mississippi river valley over 600 years ago.
And while the 'Cahokia' tribe mysteriously vanished, archaeologists have uncovered artifacts from the society that could provide clues about the group - their culture, language, and even their downfall are still lost to history.
The team university researchers recently discovered pottery, tools, like 'micro-drills,' and wall trenches at the Illinois site, dating back approximately 900 years.
Wood particles were also analysed at the site as experts hypothesize the people cut down forests, which degraded the oil and may have caused flooding - an event that could have led to the tribe abandoning the city.
The excavation is being conducted by students from Saint Louis University (SLU) and neighboring colleges, who are working toward a career in archaeology.
Students dug out rectangular holes at the site, carefully shaving out dirt to uncover new discoveries.
Mary Vermilion, associate professor and archaeology at SLU, told SOnyourside: 'The structures that we're finding here and the pottery that we're finding here seem to date to the Sterling Phase of the Mississippian Period — which is approximately 1100 AD to 1200 AD — which is a critical point in the development of the chiefdom because it's like the apex.'
The finds join hundreds of other sophisticated tools previously uncovered at the site, including shells and beads that had been precision drilled for what scholars believe was a unit of currency."
New discoveries about 'sophisticated' Native American tribe that mysteriously vanished nearly 600 years ago unearthed in Illinois | Daily Mail Online

 

"Scientists claimed to have discovered the first case of Down syndrome in Neanderthals, which suggested the archaic humans were compassionate caregivers.
The team analyzed a small cranial fragment from a six-year-old they named 'Tina' who lived more than 1450,000 years ago, finding the fossil had features consistent in children with the genetic disorder.
The analysis showed that Tina suffered from a congenital pathology in the inner ear that is linked to the genetic disorder, and likely caused severe hearing loss and disabling vertigo.
The discovery has suggested that Neanderthals were capable of providing altruistic care and support for a vulnerable member of their social group since the child survived years after birth.
Dr Mercedes Conde-Valverde, professor at the University of Alcalá and lead author of the study, told DailyMail.com: 'Until now, it was only possible to diagnose Down syndrome in fossil specimens through the analysis of ancient DNA.
'In our work, we have been able to diagnose it through an anatomical study of the inner ear.
'This opens up the possibility of studying the potential presence of Down syndrome in fossil specimens and thus being able to document its prevalence in past populations.'
The fossils were found at the Cova Negra, a cave site located in Valencia, which was excavated from 1929 to 2017.
Researchers recently analyzed remains found during a 1989 dig, uncovering three new fossils that had been previously overlooked.
While the age cannot be determined, the team believes they are between 146,000 and 273,00 years old based on when the region was inhabited by the now extinct species."
First case of Down syndrome among Neanderthals discovered in six-year-old child who lived more than 145,000 years ago | Daily Mail Online

 

It seems caveman not only cared for the sick…but the stupid too.

 

Yeah, there seems to be an assumption that only came with civilisation. I don't believe that was ever the case.

 

So many great news stories just appeared, I'm just going to post a link to the page rather than do them all individually. Hope that's ok with admin.
Archaeologica

 

Some more awfy good stuff-
Archaeologica

 

Strange 'Stonehenge' discovered in US lake that's 5,000 years older than the British landmark (msn.com)

 

Makes you wonder why no-one queried the data previously.
"Scientists have discovered a lost continent deep within the southern arm of the Artic Ocean, which formed 60 million years ago.
Researchers at the UK's University of Derby accidently uncovered the 250-mile-long landmass below the Davis Strait, between Canada and Greenland, while studying the area's plate tectonic movements.
The newly found Davis Strait proto-microcontinent, a tectonic block that became detached from a continent, was created through 'a prolonged period of rifting and seafloor spreading between Greenland and North America,' researchers explained.
The team suggested the proto-microcontinent separated from Greenland after the tectonics between the country and Canada split in two about 118 million years ago.
'Rifting and microcontinent formation are absolutely ongoing phenomena—with every earthquake we might be working towards the next microcontinent separation,' Dr Jordan Phethean told Phys. org.
'The aim of our work is to understand their formation well enough to predict that very future evolution.'
Researchers identified the new microcontinent using a combination of crustal thickness data from from gravity maps, seismic reflection data, and plate tectonic modeling.
Gravity maps contains information about rock density, and depth and distribution of anomaly source rocks.
The team focused on how the crustal anomaly formed by generating a reconstruction of the tectonic movements that lasted for roughly 30 million years."
Scientists discover a lost continent hiding between Canada and Greenland that formed 60 million years ago | Daily Mail Online

 

Literally right on my doorstep. My paternal grandmother was a scullery maid in this house before she married in 1920.
"Volunteers at Bannockburn House in Scotland discovered a musket ball hole in a wall that dates to the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.
Nearly 280 years ago, as legend goes, a would-be assassin tried to kill Bonnie prince Charlie, who led a failed rebellion of Scots against the British crown in 1745. Now, the discovery of a musket ball hole that pierced a bedroom wall inside a historic Scottish landmark offers concrete evidence that the assassination attempt really happened.
In April, volunteers doing conservation work at Bannockburn House, a historic home situated between Glasgow and Edinburgh where the Bonnie Price once stayed, received a valuable tip: The relative of a former housekeeper told them about a "secret panel" hidden beneath "delicate plaster work" depicting images of mermaids and multiple layers of "ancient wooden paneling." The volunteers soon found the hole, which offers a "grim reminder of a previously undocumented assassination attempt" against Bonnie Prince Charlie, according to a statement from Bannockburn House.
"[We] noticed what appeared to be the edge of an inset panel in the wall when cleaning out the room furniture recently for conservation," Catherine Bradley, lead volunteer researcher at Bannockburn House, said in the statement. "It is across from a window, now hidden by paneling later put in the room sometime in the 1880s. … It was an exciting moment as I opened it. I carefully lifted the panel and saw the splintered wood and I knew we'd found something very special."
Bonnie Prince Charlie narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in Scotland in 1745, musket ball hole reveals | Live Science