For Those Interested in Archaeology

After 30 years of searching... Wow! The feeling must be priceless when you find the coins instead of a tin jar from the 60´s....

 

"Archaeological research carried out at the Neolithic site of La Draga, near the lake of Banyoles, has yielded the discovery of an item which is unique in the western Mediterranean and Europe. The item is a bow which appeared in a context dating from the period between 5400-5200 BCE, corresponding to the earliest period of settlement. It is a unique item given that it is the first bow to be found in tact at the site. According to its date, it can be considered chronologically the most ancient bow of the Neolithic period found in Europe. The study will permit the analysis of aspects of the technology, survival strategies and social organisation of the first farming communities which settled in the Iberian Peninsula. The bow is 108 cm long and presents a plano-convex section. Worth mentioning is the fact that it is made out of yew wood (Taxus baccata) as were the majority of Neolithic bows in Europe."
La Draga Neolithic site in Banyoles yields the oldest Neolithic bow discovered in Europe

"A team of scientists, led by researcher Carles Lalueza-Fox from CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), has recovered - for the first time in history - part of the genome of two individuals living in the Mesolithic Period, 7000 years ago. Remains have been found at La Braña-Arintero site, located at Valdelugueros (León), Spain. The study results, published in the Current Biology magazine, indicate that current Iberian populations don't come from these groups genetically.
The Mesolithic Period, framed between the Paleolithic and Neolithic Periods, is characterized by the advent of agriculture, coming from the Middle East. Therefore, the genome found is the oldest from Prehistory, and exceeds Ötzi, the Iceman, in 1700 years."
CSIC recovers part of the genome of 2 hunter-gatherer individuals from 7,000 years ago

 

"BEIRUT: Beirut’s Minet al-Hosn construction site does not contain the remains of a Phoenician port as maintained by the Directorate General of Antiquities and the former Culture Minister, according to an archaeological report obtained by The Daily Star.
The Archaeological Assessment Report on the Venus Towers Site states: “While the site ... is intriguing, it does not fit the known parameters for a port, shipyard, or shipshed facility.”
The report, written by Dr. Ralph Pederson of Marburg University following an extensive investigation, maintains that there is nothing to connect the site to ships or shipbuilding."
THE DAILY STAR :: News :: Local News :: Archaeological report: Razed ruins not Phoenician port

 

"Danish archaeologists said on Tuesday they had re-opened a mass grave of scores of slaughtered Iron Age warriors to find new clues about their fate and the bloody practices of Germanic tribes on the edge of the Roman Empire.Bones of around 200 soldiers have already been found preserved in a peat bog near the village of Alken on Denmark's Jutland peninsula."
Archaeologists dig up bog army bones in Denmark | Reuters


"Danish archaeologists believe they have found the remains of the fabled Viking town Sliasthorp by the Schlei bay in northern Germany, near the Danish border.
According to texts from the 8th century, the town served as the centre of power for the first Scandinavian kings.
But historians have doubted whether Sliasthorp even existed. This doubt is now starting to falter, as archaeologists from Aarhus University are making one amazing discovery after the other in the German soil."
Legendary Viking town unearthed | ScienceNordic


"When the Bronze Age arrived in Scandinavia around 3,500 years ago, it was the advent of a new technology. Combining copper with the elements tin or arsenic made an alloy which is stronger and more durable; Bronze.
The region of modern-day Norway was then, as now, at the periphery of Europe and although the population had the skills and know-how to create bronze metalwork, according to current scientific consensus they would have had to import all the copper they needed from abroad.
But archaeologist Anne Lene Melheim suggests that Bronze Age Norwegians may actually have mined their own copper ore.
“It might not have been a large scale operation, but this could radically change our perception of Norway in the Bronze Age,” she points out in her doctoral thesis.
The century-old assumption that Bronze Age Norway relied solely on imported copper originated with the renowned Swedish archaeologist Oscar Montelius. He used the theory of metal imports to explain traces of trade and cultural contact between Scandinavia and Continental Europe."
Copper miners of Bronze Age Norway? : Past Horizons Archaeology

 

"The Schoharie County archaeological dig continues, and was open to the public for a few days this week. Archaeology students from SUNY Albany participate in the dig as part of their course work, but for two days each year, the site is open for anyone to get a first hand look at what they're finding.
Loretta Martin, a local mom from Galway brought her kids to see the dig. "It's in your backyard and you'd never know that this is going on, and you know they're finding things here from thousands of years ago."
Steve Moragne is the Field Director, and is glad the students can get some hands on experience. "They're screening the soil, recovering artifacts, they're here to explain what they're doing, they're here to show people what archaeology is."
New items are found every day, including pieces of pottery, stones from a fire, and many artifacts that can be dated back as far as 2000 B.C. "
An archaeological dig reveals people lived in Central Bridge in 2000 B.C. - FOX23 News - The 10 O'Clock News

"Key archaeological discoveries have been made by engineers constructing Crossrail, the east to west rail link through central London.
Investigations have confirmed the presence of up to 4,000 complete skeletons, as well as rare 55- million-year-old amber fragments."
BBC News - Crossrail excavation work digs up 4,000 skeletons


"In a "eureka" moment worthy of Dr. Frankenstein, scientists have discovered that two 3,000-year-old Scottish "bog bodies" are actually made from the remains of six people.
According to new isotopic dating and DNA experiments, the mummies—a male and a female—were assembled from various body parts, although the purpose of the gruesome composites is likely lost to history.
The mummies were discovered more than a decade ago below the remnants of 11th-century houses at Cladh Hallan, a prehistoric village on the island of South Uist (map), off the coast of Scotland."
"Frankenstein" Bog Mummies Discovered in Scotland

 

Sheesh, I've hit the mother lode today!

"One of the largest gold treasures ever to be discovered in Israel was uncovered last week at an archaeological dig near Herzliya.
The treasure, more than 100 gold pieces and weighing approximately 400 grams (nearly one pound), is estimated at a worth of more than $100,000.
The coins were found hidden in a partly broken pottery vessel at the Appollonia National Park, where archaeologists say the former Crusader town of Apollonia-Arsuf once thrived. The dig is being carried out under the joint auspices of Tel Aviv University and the Nature and Parks Authority."
Archaeologists Uncover Gold Treasure Near Herzliya - Features - News - Israel National News

"HOHHOT - Archaeologists of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences have finished reconstituting a 5,300-year-old pottery statue from fragments unearthed in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, it was announced on Saturday.
The debris of the pottery statue was found at the Xinglonggou relics site in Aohan banner of Chifeng city in May."
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-07/07/content_15557524.htm

"Stone Age tools uncovered in Yemen point to humans leaving Africa and inhabiting Arabia perhaps as far back as 63,000 years ago, archaeologists report.
"The expansion of modern humans out of Africa and into Eurasia via the Arabian Peninsula is currently one of the most debated questions in prehistory," begins an upcoming Journal of Human Evolution report led by Anne Delagnes of France's Université Bordeaux. The archaeologists report from the site of Shi'bat Dihya located in a wadi, or gully, that connects Yemen's highlands to the coastal plains of the Red Sea.
The age of the site puts it squarely at a time when early modern humans were thought to be first emigrating from Eastern Africa to the rest of the world. "The Arabian Peninsula is routinely considered as the corridor where migrating East African populations would have passed during a single or multiple dispersal events," says the study. "
http://content.usatoday.com/communi...in-arabia-some-55000-years-ago/1#.T_nKFGukd8F

"Diving school trainer Hakan Gulec came across more than fish and flotsam during a recent trip to the bottom of the ocean near Antalya off the coast of southern Turkey. An object protruding through the sand on the sea bed caught Gulec's attention, prompting the intrepid explorer to dislodge and photograph the mystery find. According to Hürriyet Daily News, he then showed his images to officials at Alanya museum who were taken aback by the discovery: a striking, well-preserved sarcophagus adorned with Medusa heads, cupids holding up garlands and dancing women at the corners."
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Sea+surrenders+pristine+Roman+sarcophagus+/26909

"Hernando De Soto's route through Florida is as elusive to modern archaeologists as the gold the famed Spanish explorer sought throughout the southeastern United States.
Ever since De Soto's 600 men set foot on the shores of Tampa Bay, arriving from Cuba almost 500 years ago, historians have debated the exact direction of his failed treasure-hunting expeditions as far north as Tennessee and North Carolina.
But in north Marion County, an archaeologist has found what his contemporaries deem rarer than the gold De Soto was seeking — physical evidence of the explorer's precise journey through Marion County and enough information to redraw Florida De Soto maps and fuel many more archaeological digs based on his findings. "
http://www.newschief.com/article/20120708/NEWS/120709981

"ARCHAEOLOGISTS have made a landmark discovery that could help answer the question that has puzzled Irish historians for over 200 years.
Could an invasion of Ireland by Napoleon's French forces have succeeded and triggered Irish independence more than century earlier than it was actually won?
A team of experts -- led by Rubicon Archaeology -- has discovered a near pristine gun emplacement on Bere Island in west Cork.
They have also revealed tantalising hints that Britain's coastal defensive network was much more formidable than first thought -- and would have left the French facing their own 19th Century version of D-Day and Germany's Atlantic Wall.
Until now, it had been presumed that only bad weather, poor planning and luck had kept crack French troops away from the Irish coast."
http://www.independent.ie/national-...p-clue-to-early-independence-bid-3161620.html

 

I can hear the jokes coming already....
"Today New York City is the Big Apple of the Northeast but new research reveals that 500 years ago, at a time when Europeans were just beginning to visit the New World, a settlement on the north shore of Lake Ontario, in Canada, was the biggest, most complex, cosmopolitan place in the region. Occupied between roughly A.D. 1500 and 1530, the so-called Mantle site was settled by the Wendat (Huron). Excavations at the site, between 2003 and 2005, have uncovered its 98 longhouses, a palisade of three rows (a fence made of heavy wooden stakes and used for defense) and about 200,000 artifacts. Dozens of examples of art have been unearthed showing haunting human faces and depictions of animals, with analysis ongoing."
Ancient 'New York City' of Canada Discovered - Yahoo! News

 

"An international team of researchers, led by Professor Andres Ruiz-Linares from the University College London (UCL) and Professor David Reich of the Harvard Medical School have found that Native American populations originally arose, not from one single migration of people, but at least three. Moreover, their origins can be genetically traced to populations traversing across the ancient Beringia land bridge that existed during the ice ages over 15,000 years ago.
"For years it has been contentious whether the settlement of the Americas occurred by means of a single or multiple migrations from Siberia," said Ruiz-Linares. "But our research settles this debate: Native Americans do not stem from a single migration"."
Popular Archaeology

 

"Who were the first humans to enter the North American continent? Were they humans who founded what is known as the Clovis culture over 13,000 years ago? Or did other, totally unrelated peoples precede the Clovis immigrants?
This issue has been intensely, if not bitterly debated for decades. The Clovis culture has been seen as the cradle of North American indigenous culture. Now new international research shows that people of another culture and technology were present concurrently or even previous to those of Clovis. Scientists have added a new and dramatic chapter to the history of the peopling of the Americas striking a deadly blow to the “Clovis First” theory that has dominated pre-historic American archaeology for so long. The sensational results are published in the international journal Science.
Evidence that a non-Clovis culture was present in North America at least as early as Clovis people themselves and likely before is presented by an international team of researchers from the USA, the UK, and Denmark."
Archaeology & Palaeontology News - Press Releases : The Clovis First Theory is put to rest at Paisley Caves | Heritage Daily - Latest Archaeology News and Archaeological Press Releases

 

"A Bulgarian Herculaneum, named Akra, has been discovered by archaeologists on the Akin cape, near the town of Chernomorets on the southern Black Sea coast.
The information was reported by the Director of the National History Museum, NIM, Bozhidar Dimitrov, speaking in an exclusive interview for the online edition of the Bulgarian 24 Chassa (24 Hours) daily.
The historian says that the settlement had been destroyed by an Avar invasion.
Ivan Hristov, who leads the archaeological team and is a Deputy of Dimitrov, is continuing excavations on the cape, where a unique for the Bulgarian Black Sea coast underwater district with remnants from an early Byzantine fortress have been found. The fortress, initially believed to be named Krimna, dates from the end of the 5th century A.C.
According to Hristov, the fire set by the Avars, in some way sealed the finds into the earth, similarly to the lava from Vesuvius sealing Pompeii. The heavy tile roofs collapsed preserving everything underneath."
Archaeologists Discover Bulgarian Herculaneum: Archaeologists Discover Bulgarian Herculaneum - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency

 

"This discovery resulted from the archaeological work carried out prior to construction of a large canal. Archaeologists from Inrap looked at 17 hectares in 2010, which revealed a Palaeolithic level and more evidence was found in 2012, when 3,200 square metres were excavated over 4 month period.
The most recent occupation comes from the Middle Paleolithic (80,000 years old) and belongs to the Neanderthals. Twenty sites of this period are already known in northern France.
The next two levels are also Neanderthal and belong to the early phase of the Middle Paleolithic during an interglacial period – the Saalian – between 190,000 and 240,000 years old. The discoveries of sites from this period are rare and, in the north of France, only excavations in 1999 (around Beauvais) and Biache St. Vaast in 1976 (Pas-de-Calais) have produced such well preserved contemporary deposits.
Finally, the oldest level is exceptional. Dated to at least 300 000 years, it belongs to the Palaeolithic, Acheulian culture. The flint tools found at this level were shaped either by the last Homo heidelbergensis or by early Neanderthals."
300 000 year old flint tools found in Northern France : Past Horizons Archaeology


"New discoveries made in Inverness have fuelled speculation among experts that it was an important area of prehistoric iron production.
Rare finds of well-preserved metalworking hearths, or furnaces, have been uncovered at Beechwood during work by Edinburgh-based AOC Archaeology.
Archaeologists believe the discoveries date to the Iron Age."
BBC News - New 'Iron Age' discoveries made in Inverness

 

"Around the year AD 256, a ferocious siege took place on the Euphrates in eastern Syria. In burning sun on battlements and siege-ramp, and in stifling tunnels dug beneath the defences, Roman and Persian battled for control of an ancient frontier-city. Some of them appear to have suffered an especially gruesome end – in ways we tend to associate more with the trenches of the First World War than with the Classical world."

Death Underground: Gas warfare at Dura-Europos

 

"About 1,800 years ago, at a time when China was breaking apart into three warring kingdoms, a warrior was laid to rest. Buried in a tomb with domed roofs, along with his wife, he was about 45 years old when he died. Their skeletal remains were found inside two wooden coffins that had rotted away. Archaeologists don't know their names but, based on the tomb design and grave goods, they believe he was a general who had served one or more of the country's warring lords, perhaps Cao Cao and his son Cao Pi.
His tomb was discovered in Xiangyang, a city that, in the time of the Three Kingdoms, was of great strategic importance. Rescue excavations started in October 2008 and now the discovery is detailed in the most recent edition of the journal Chinese Archaeology. (The report had appeared earlier, in Chinese, in the journal Wenwu.)"
Three Kingdoms' Tomb Holding Warrior Discovered - Yahoo! News


"Speaking of "firsts" and "origins", it is perhaps fitting that a world first in open scientific research should begin with discoveries being made in the field of human orgins research. Even more fitting might be its applicaton to the recent science headline-making fossil discoveries that have been made in South Africa related to the new Australopithecus sediba, the latest hominin species suggested by a number of scientists as a possible evolutionary precursor to our own human lineage.
In an unprecedented gesture of open access to science and public participation, the University of the Witwatersrand, the Gauteng Provincial Government and the South African national government announced that for the first time in history, the process of exploring and uncovering these fossil remains would be conducted live, captured on video, and conveyed to the world in real time. This will allow members of the public and the scientific community to share in the unfolding discovery in an unprecedented way."
Popular Archaeology


"The team, headed by Dr Andrew Fairbairn from the University of Queensland, will join with a British team next week to continue work on the excavation of a 10,000-year-old early village site in central Turkey.
The site, known as Boncuklu Höyük, is one of the earliest village sites found from the period when hunter-gatherer societies began to leave their nomadic lifestyle and take up farming.
Villagers lived in oval-shaped, mud brick houses and hunted, farmed and traded with other local communities on an area of wetlands which is now a dusty plain near the city of Konya.
"It's come to be one of the key transformations in human history because, basically, the development of our civilisations is routed in a lot of these social and economic transformations that happened around about this time," Dr Fairbairn told ABC News Online."
Ancient village holds lifestyle clues for archaeologists - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

"Results from a new study* published in the July 25, 2012 issue of PLoS ONE reveal that there is no difference between the energy expenditure of modern hunter-gatherers and Westerners, challenging the widely accepted theory that today's sedentary lifestyle in Western countries is the reason for rising obesity levels. The findings are also significant for understanding our relationship to our ancient hunter-gatherer past, as the study subjects are members of a modern-day hunter-gatherer population that is believed to closely reflect the way our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors once lived."
Popular Archaeology

 

"A genetic study of African hunter-gatherers has revealed important new insights to how human populations of the distant past have evolved to adapt to their environments, a key component of change in human evolution that has led to the genetic diversity we see today in modern human populations.
The research, published on July 26th in the journal Cell
"The Glauberg is a hot spot for archaeologists. For decades, researchers have been studying the hill in the central German state of Hesse, where people settled some 7,000 years ago.
and led by Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania, involved sequencing whole genomes of 15 individuals, five each from three different hunter-gatherer population groups in Africa. "We sequenced the genomes of five males from each of three African hunter-gatherer populations (Western Pygmy, Hadza, and Sandawe) at high coverage", she said. "We then compared these genome sequences to a previously published genome sequence from a San hunter-gatherer and to publicly available whole-sequence data from other ethnically, linguistically, and geographically diverse African populations.....These genomes were compared to publicly available high-coverage genomes sequenced and analyzed using the same technology and software in a diverse panel of 53 unrelated individuals (including 4 Luhya from Kenya, 4 Maasai from Kenya, 10 Yoruba from Nigeria, and 51 non-Africans), allowing the genomes of African hunter-gatherers to be placed within a global context". [1] "
Popular Archaeology

Over the millennia, the plateau was inhabited by Celts and Alemanni and, in the Middle Ages, people there built castles that reached for the sky. Accordingly, researchers have found plenty of artifacts. In 1996, they made the sensational discovery of an almost perfectly preserved statue of a Celtic warrior, which is now known as the Celtic Prince of Glauberg.
It was thought unlikely that the mound would yield any more big surprises. At least that was the assumption until people with flying lasers showed up. They flew an airplane over the Glauberg multiple times, sending pulses of light to the ground and measuring their echoes. This "light detection and ranging" technology, known as LIDAR, helps scientists record differences in altitude down to just a few centimeters. Trees and bushes are no obstacle to accurate measurements -- they can simply be calculated out later with a computer. What remains is a three-dimensional image of the naked earth's surface, including geometric formations that betray any structures that might be hidden underground. "
Remote-Scanning Techniques Revolutionize Archaeology - SPIEGEL ONLINE

 

"Human behaviour, as we know it, emerged 44,000 years ago - much earlier than previously thought, according to a new study.
An international team of scientists have substantially increased the age at which we can trace the emergence of modern culture, thanks to research into hunter-gatherers in South Africa.
A key question in human evolution is when in prehistory human cultures similar to ours emerged.
Until now, most archaeologists believed that the oldest traces of the San people - a hunter-gatherer culture in southern Africa - dates back 10,000, or at most 20,000 years.
However evidence discovered by the palaeo-anthropology department at Wits University in South Africa show 'without a doub't that people in an area called Border Cave were using digging sticks weighted with perforated stones around 44,000 years ago.
Doctor Lucinda Backwell, senior researcher in in South Africa, said: 'The dating and analysis of archaeological material discovered at Border Cave in South Africa has allowed us to demonstrate that many elements of material culture that characterise the lifestyle of San hunter-gatherers were part of the culture and technology of the inhabitants of this site 44,000 years ago.'
The research by the team - consisting of scientists from Britain, South Africa, France, Italy, Norway and the United States - was carried out in South Africa."
Research that could set humanity back 20,000 years: Ornaments and tools show that Modern Man emerged 44,000 years ago (much earlier than we thought) | Mail Online

 

"Expeditions to Africa may have brought back evidence of a hitherto unknown branch in the human family tree. But this time the evidence wasn’t unearthed by digging in the dirt. It was found in the DNA of hunter-gatherer people living in Cameroon and Tanzania.
Buried in the genetic blueprints of 15 people, researchers found the genetic signature of a sister species that branched off the human family tree at about the same time that Neandertals did. This lineage probably remained isolated from the one that produced modern humans for a long time, but its DNA jumped into the Homo sapiens gene pool through interbreeding with modern humans during the same era that other modern humans and Neandertals were mixing in the Middle East, researchers report in the August 3 Cell. "
DNA Hints At African Cousin To Humans - Science News

 

"Scientists have discovered two new species of early human which lived alongside our direct ancestor two million years ago, before coming to an evolutionary 'dead end'.
The revelation is based on three new fossils unearthed between 2007 and 2009 from a site near Lake Turkana in Kenya - known as the 'cradle of mankind'.
They included a face, a near-complete lower jaw, and part of a second lower jaw.
Combined with a mysterious fossil known as '1470' found nearby four decades ago, they confirm the existence of a human species with a large brain case and long, flat face.
The fossils appear to be distinct both from Homo erectus and Homo habilis, another primitive species from the same era."
We weren't alone! Scientists confirm there were two other species of early human beings | Mail Online

 

"possible pyramid complexes might have been found in Egypt, according to a Google Earth satellite imagery survey.
Located about 90 miles apart, the sites contain unusual grouping of mounds with intriguing features and orientations, said satellite archaeology researcher Angela Micol of Maiden, N.C.
One site in Upper Egypt, just 12 miles from the city of Abu Sidhum along the Nile, features four mounds each with a larger, triangular-shaped plateau.
The two larger mounds at this site are approximately 250 feet in width, with two smaller mounds approximately 100 feet in width."
Lost Egyptian Pyramids Found? : Discovery News