Past Horizons

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Roman remains still waiting in storage.

 

British archaeology has enjoyed a surge of interest of late, with the recent unearthing of Richard III in a certain Leicester car park. However, one London archaeological site remains in limbo: the Temple of Mithras is still waiting for its new home, as one of the City’s biggest ever digs continues.

 

The temple, dating from 240AD, has been dismantled and is currently in storage with the Museum of London. It’s awaiting a permanent home in the rebuilt Bucklersbury House on Queen Victoria Street, which is set to be the European headquarters of media giant Bloomberg LP.

 

Part of the delay has to do with ongoing excavation work on the Queen Victoria Street site, which has evolved into the Walbrook Discovery Programme, one of the largest digs undertaken in the City of London, according to MOLA, with more than 50 archaeologists combing through the mud of the Roman River Walbrook.

See on londonist.com

by Katy Meyers

Palaeopathology, the study of ancient diseases in human or animal remains usually means analysis of the skeletal material to examine the diseases effect on the bone. However, palaeopathology is not a straightforward science with many diseases not even appearing on the bone, and when they do, they present very similar manifestations but with very different causes.

Radiograph of knees revealing new bone formation (arrows) of periostitis along the femur and tibia.

Periostitis, for example,  is a non-specific infection of the bone that causes extra bony growth in long small layers across the bone. It can appear from any number of infections or diseases, and therefore is not indicative of a single cause. In order to diagnose pathology in bones, it takes a careful inspection of all the possible pathological signs and careful analysis of all the potential diseases within the historical context.

In most cases we are left not with a single correct diagnosis, but with a differential diagnosis of the most likely pathology and others that are also possible. Here are two case studies in paleopathology: ovarian teratoma, and osteogenesis imperfecta.

Ovarian Teratoma: La Fogonussa (Lleida, Catalonia)

The individual investigated by Armentano et al. (2012) was an adult female, aged 30-40 years, who was recovered from a 5th century Roman necropolis in the Iberian Peninsula. She was found complete, well preserved, and lying in supine position in a tegulae (tile) covered grave.

Burial of individual 87 from the late Roman site of La Fogonussa (Catalonia, Spain). The structure of the grave was made of tegulae placed to form a gabled roof., via Armentano et al 2012

Initial analysis found that she had a number of degenerative changes, primarily osteoarthritis, that comes with ageing. There was also a round calcified mass in the pelvic region.

In order to determine it’s nature, they conducted macroscopic analysis and CT scans. The mass measured 43 by 44 mm and had a rugose (wrinkled) texture. Internal investigation of the tumour found it had two small deformed teeth within the sediment and two small teeth embedded in the bone itself.

Ovarian Teratoma, via Armentano et al 2012

The localization of the protuberance to one side, the overall shape, and the presence of bony structures and teeth within are pathognomonic (diagnostically unique) of ovarian teratoma.

An ovarian teratoma is a benign tumor of varying shape that is usually characterized as being ‘bizarre’. They often occur on one side of the pelvis, and are found mainly in women of child-bearing age. They contain germ layers which can lead to development of hair, teeth, thyroid glands, or bone in the tumour. It can be cause of death as it may result in anaemia or interruptions in neighbouring organs.

What is unique about this case is that it is the first documented example of an ancient ovarian teratoma. While other types of teratomas and calcifications have been found, even these are quite rare. It is only because the tumour contained bone and teeth that an exact diagnosis was possible, since any soft tissue structures do not preserve.  It is not that they did not happen, it is that unless the evidence is present (as in this case) it is nearly ‘invisible’ in the record.

Osteogenesis imperfecta: Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt

This investigation by Cope and Dupras (2011) is based on the skeletal remains of a foetus from the Romano-Byzantine period Kellis 2 cemetery (circa A.D. 50–A.D. 450), in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt.

Typically in this period and region, sub-adult burials are found oriented east-west in a supine extended position. However, the individual under investigation was recovered from a shallow grave, partially on its right side and back in a semi-flexed position. All of the skeletal elements were recovered, though most of the cranium was fragmented due to taphonomic processes.

The bones were very brittle with a light beige colour, which was not normal for skeletons excavated from Kellis 2. Most of the bones had an abnormal curvature, including a ribcage that was barrel shaped, and a number of bones were partially or completely fractured. There was also abnormal bone growth at the metaphyses (the ends of the long bones where growth occurs).

Infant’s skeleton with osteogenesis imperfecta next to coffin and larger image of skull. From Speos Artemidos, Egypt 22nd Dynasty, around 850 BC (not the individual discussed in article) {c} Trustees of the British Museum

Given the appearance of the bones, bending, fractures, and a lack of other pathological indicators, they diagnose this individual as having osteogenesis imperfecta.

It is a genetic disorder that causes problems with the production of collagen to strengthen bones. Individuals with this condition have extremely fragile bones, are prone to fractures, and many die prior to or at birth. Other individuals have been found in the archaeological literature with this condition, but this is the youngest.

Other individuals from the Dakhleh Oasis have been found with the condition. The findings from these archaeological studies shows that it is highly likely that this foetus has osteogenesis imperfecta.

Foetal skeletons are very rarely recovered from excavation sites and it is extremely unusual to find ones with recognisable  pathological conditions. The finding of a foetus with osteogenesis imperfecta suggests the disorder had some prevalence in the population, and is the youngest documented case of this disorder to date.

Read more from Katy Meyers at www.bonesdontlie.com

 

More Information Katy Meyers is an anthropology PhD student who specializes in mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology at  Michigan State University. She writes regularly on bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology news at her site www.bonesdontlie.com Armentano, N., Subirana, M., Isidro, A., Escala, O., & Malgosa, A. (2012). An ovarian teratoma of late Roman age International Journal of Paleopathology, 2 (4), 236-239 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpp.2012.11.003Cope, D., & Dupras, T. (2011). Osteogenesis imperfecta in the archeological record: An example from the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt International Journal of Paleopathology, 1 (3-4), 188-199 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpp.2012.02.001 For Archaeology News – Archaeology Research – Archaeology Press Releases

Tasked with cleaning and sorting a collection at the University of Aberdeen Museum in northeast Scotland, Louise Wilkie, who joined the team last June was working on one of her first major assignments and stumbled upon a set of tiny slippers. Thanks to some detective work by the curatorial assistant it has now been verified that the embroidered shoes boast a connection to Napoleon Bonaparte’s sister, Princess Pauline Borghese.

Louise Wilkie, of the University of Aberdeen’s museum team, with the tiny slippers. Image: University of Aberdeen Detective work

The collection that Louise was sorting belonged to the Banff-born medical graduate and extensive traveller Robert Wilson (1787 – 1871).

The decorative shoes, which are equivalent to a UK child’s size two are incredibly narrow and measure just 40mm across the toes. Robert Wilson left his collection of objects from his extensive travels to the museum in Aberdeen in his will of 1871. As part of the list of the objects donated is the description of ‘A pair of slippers – Pauline, Rome Jan 20th 1824’. The same inscription is on the base of the slipper.

Louise began to look at other archival material held by the University and soon found that Wilson had a friendship with Princess Pauline Borghese.

A close friendship in a scandalised court Pauline Bonaparte suo jure Duchess of Guastalla and Princess Borghese as the wife of Camillo Borghese, 6th Prince of Sulmona, and Napoleon’s younger sister. Image: Wikimedia Commons, used under a CC BY-SA 3.0

“Letters from him to Pauline show a close friendship and in his diary he describes how she spent a lot of time with him travelling in Italy and gave him many gifts, including a ring which is also held in the museum collections.” Louise recounted.

The delicate dimensions of the slippers also fit with descriptions of Princess Pauline, who was said to have been an exquisitely beautiful but very petite woman, who was often carried from room to room.

She was a colourful character – the youngest sister of Napoleon who became Princess Pauline when she married Prince Camillo Borghese in 1803. This marriage was not a happy one, due to Pauline’s infidelity and much of her life was riddled with scandal.

She met Wilson, who graduated in Medicine from Marischal College, Aberdeen and served as a ship’s surgeon with the East India Company, in the 1820s.

With wealth secured through profitable trading while in the Company’s service and a driving curiosity, Wilson had become a prolific traveller.

Louise added: “The relationship between Wilson and Princess Pauline can only be speculated upon, however records do indicate some form of attraction and attachment.

“In his diary he wrote ‘I passed a fortnight in the vicinity of Pisa with the Princess Borgese in a state of almost perfect seclusion and afterwards accompanied her to the Baths of Lucca.’

100 Curiosities

Princess Pauline’s slippers and the ring she gifted to Wilson are now on display for the first time in the University of Aberdeen’s King’s Museum as part of a display of ‘100 Curiosities’.

Neil Curtis, Head of Museums at the University of Aberdeen, said: “The University holds huge collections and many of the items given to us over the years do not have full descriptions.

This was a classic example of historical detective work that pieced together the fascinating history behind the slippers and the remarkable life of both Robert Wilson and the Princess Pauline, sister of Napoleon.”

Source: University of Aberdeen

More Information Maria-Pauline Borghese, née Buonaparte Mini bio at about.comFraser, Flora: Venus of Empire: The Life of Pauline Bonaparte, John Murray, 2009, London, ISBN 978-0-7195-6110-8,

Cite this article

University of Aberdeen (2013, Feb 06). Slippers of Napoleon Bonaparte’s sister uncovered in Museum. Past Horizons. Feb, 2013, from http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/02/2013/slippers-of-napoleon-bonapartes-sister-uncovered-in-museum) For Archaeology News – Archaeology Research – Archaeology Press Releases

At least 35 small pyramids, along with graves, have been discovered clustered closely together at a site called Sedeinga in Sudan.

Discovered between 2009 and 2012, researchers are surprised at how densely the pyramids are concentrated. In one field season alone, in 2011, the research team discovered 13 pyramids packed into roughly 5,381 square feet, or slightly larger than an NBA basketball court.

They date back around 2,000 years to a time when a kingdom named Kush flourished in Sudan. Kush shared a border with Egypt and, later on, the Roman Empire. The desire of the kingdom’s people to build pyramids was apparently influenced by Egyptian funerary architecture.

At Sedeinga, researchers say, pyramid building continued for centuries. “The density of the pyramids is huge,” said researcher Vincent Francigny, a research associate with the American Museum of Natural History in New York, in an interview with LiveScience. “Because it lasted for hundreds of years they built more, more, more pyramids and after centuries they started to fill all the spaces that were still available in the necropolis.” [See Photos of the Newly Discovered Pyramids]

 Read the full article at the CBC News website

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There is a widely accepted theory that the final outpost of Neanderthals –Homo neanderthalensis– was in southern Iberia and they shared this space with modern humans –Homo sapiens– as they advanced into the northern part of the peninsula.

However, an international study, in which researchers of the Spanish National Distance Education University (UNED) participate, questions this hypothesis and also casts doubt that ancestors of modern humans interbred with Neanderthals over thousands of years.

Doubt in the recent theory

“It is improbable that the last Neanderthals of central and southern Iberia would have persisted until such a late date, approximately 30,000 years ago, as we thought before the new dates appeared” explains Jesús F. Jordá, researcher of the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology of the UNED and co-author of the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Since the 1990s researchers had argued convincingly that the ‘last Neanderthals’ sought refuge in the Spanish peninsula and were extinct around 30,000 years ago, which allowed enough time for the Neanderthals to mix their DNA with that of modern humans, who entered the Iberian peninsula more than 10,000 years earlier.

It is commonly accepted that some of the latest dates for Neanderthal fossils and Mousterian industries are found south of the Ebro valley in Iberia at ca. 36 ka calBP (calibrated radiocarbon date ranges). In contrast, to the north of the valley the Mousterian disappears shortly before the Proto-Aurignacian appears at ca. 42 ka calBP. The latter is most likely produced by anatomically modern humans.

Neanderthal statue and H. sapiens. Image Neanderthal Museum, Germany Refining the C14 dates

The scientific team, with researchers from Oxford University (United Kingdom), Australia National University, UNED (Madrid), University of La Laguna (Tenerife), Archaeological Museum of Lucena (Córdoba), and National Museum of National History (Paris), applied a new technique in order to repeat analyses at the sites of Jarama VI (Guadalajara) and Zafarraya (Malaga), considered up to now two of the last refuges of the Iberian Neanderthals, these two sites were the only ones found to contain material that could be reliably dated.

Ebro Valley, Spain. Image: Wikimedia Commons, used under a CC BY-SA 3.0

The researchers added the ultrafiltration protocol to the usual radiocarbon dating method, which aims to purify the collagen of the bone samples from contaminants. The AMS dating technique was applied that requires minimum sample quantities.

By applying this new protocol, it was conceded that Neanderthal occupation of the sites did not last until as late as previously thought; instead it should be placed approximately 45,000 years ago, around 10,000 years earlier.

Middle Palaeolithic contexts that had previously been dated using the traditional radiocarbon methodologies to less than 42 ka calBP were found to produce dates that were too ‘young’  and by using ultrafiltration to purify faunal bone collagen before radiocarbon dating, the researchers obtained ages at least 10 ka 14C years older, close to or beyond the limit of the radiocarbon method for the Mousterian at Jarama VI and Neanderthal fossils at Zafarraya.

“The problem with radiocarbon dating alone is that it does not provide reliable dates older than 50,000 years” explains Jordá. An additional problem is contamination; the older the samples are the more residues are accumulated. If contaminants are not removed the obtained dates are incorrect.

Re-writing prehistory books La Cueva de los Aviones en el Puerto de Cartagena

New analyses was applied to osteological remains found in the archaeological deposits in association with Middle Palaeolithic stone artefacts. Bones bearing clear signs of human manipulation (cut marks, marks of percussion or intentional breakage) were selected in order to rule out possible intrusions by carnivores.

Despite the fact that samples were collected from numerous sites in southern Iberia, it was only possible to date those of Jarama VI and Zafarraya, as the remaining samples did not contain enough collagen to be dated.

Cueva Antón (Murcia) is the only site that still provides recent dates in accordance with what has until now been postulated in relation to the persistence of the Neanderthals. However, the technological remains are not clearly related to the Neanderthals and the dated charcoal samples are not well associated with the lithics.

In view of the new data according to Jordá “prehistory books would need revision“, especially as new results become available. “Although it is still controversial to change the theory in force, the new concept, which presents new data indicating that Neanderthals and H. sapiens did not co-exist in Iberia, is becoming accepted” he adds.

In this case, it seems an alternative models of human occupation of the region should be considered, however, even this research is at an early stage, and the researchers are clear that, concerning the possible coincidence of both groups in the Cantabrian area. “Sites as La Güelga (Asturias) are being analysed anew in order to determine if co-existence occurred. We must wait for the results to verify or not this hypothesis” he concludes.

 

Source: UNED National Distance Education University

More Information

• Rachel E. Wood, Cecilio Barroso-Ruíz, Miguel Caparrós, Jesús F. Jordá Pardo, Bertila Galván Santos and Thomas F. G. Higham. Radiocarbon dating casts doubt on the late chronology of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in southern Iberia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 04-02-2013
• AMS dating
• Ultrafiltration protocol
• Carlos Lorenzo, Marta Navazo, Juan Carlos Díez, Carmen Sesé, Diego Arceredillo, Jesús F. Jordá Pardo  (2012 ) New human fossil to the last Neanderthals in central Spain (Jarama VI, Valdesotos, Guadalajara, Spain), Journal of Human Evolution, Volume 62, Issue 6, June 2012, Pages 720–725 (paid subscription)
• Hublin J.-J et E.Trinkaus, 1998 - The Mousterian human remains from Zafarraya (Granada, Spain). American Journal of Physical Anthropology suppl 26 : 122-123
• Neanderthal Museum

Cite this article

UNED National Distance Education University (2013, February 4). Last Neanderthals of Southern Iberia never met Homo sapiens.  Past Horizons. February 5, 2013, from http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/02/2013/last-neanderthals-of-southern-iberia-never-met-homo-sapiens)

 

 

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5th February 2013 In collaboration with Stonepages, British Archaeological Jobs Resource and Past Horizons Headlines

Clovis culture not wiped out by comet
Oldest stone hand axes unearthed
Early sweet potato trade
Human skull found beneath Scottish golf course
Archaeologistsrevise image of ancient Celts
9,000-year-old remains discovered in England
Loom weights reveal weaving in Turkey 2,500 years ago

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The Museum of Cycladic Art (MCA) in Athens, Greece is presenting a major new archaeological exhibition entitled ‘Princesses’ of the Mediterranean in the dawn of History.

Head and torso of funerary statue. 625 BC. Limestone. From Vetulonia, burial mound of Pietrera. Florence, National Archaeological Museum. Fernando Guerrini και Mauro del Sarto (Photographic Archive of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Tuscany ©). A new insight

The exhibition is curated by the MCA’s Director Professor Nicholas Stampolidis, in collaboration with Dr Mimika Giannopoulou and presents 24 examples of ‘princesses’ from Greece, Cyprus, Southern Italy, and Etruria from between  1,000 to 500 BC, displaying over 500 artefacts to shine new insight into the women of the Archaic Mediterranean.

Royal ladies or princesses; priestesses or healers; women of authority; are all women who stood apart from the rest who either accepted and adopted cultural traits of different societies or of the men they married in their homeland.

Through their stories, one can perceive how women played a contributing role in broadening the cultural horizons of their time, including their involvement in the development of the archaic Mediterranean culture.

This exhibition presents real women rather than mythical figures; women who were born, lived and were very much of flesh and bone.

Lifting a veil on women of antiquity

When considered with tomb and burial typologies, funerary customs, and, above all, the grave goods such as garments and jewellery buried with them – whether chosen by the deceased in life, or provided after their passing by loved ones to take to Persephone’s meadow – these remains can potentially help ‘resuscitate’ them by lifting the veils of time to see their likeness, however faintly, as far as archaeological thinking and interpretation permits.

The term ‘princesses’ in the title does not necessarily refer to real princesses of a royal or princely lineage, although these are also present. Because the regimes, roles, and possessions of the persons of power and prestige differed from one another in the eastern and central Mediterranean during the long interval covered by this exhibition (1,000-500 BC), the terms ‘king/queen’ and ‘prince/princess’ cannot be defined unequivocally. Therefore, the terms ‘prince/princess’ (from the Latin princeps) are used here in a broader sense to describe someone eminent in their community for reasons such as lineage (family), prestige, or wealth.

The Lady of Lefkadi in Euboea, the wealthy Athenian Lady from the Areopagus, the famous Picenean queen from Sirolo-Numana near modern Ancone, burials from Verucchio and Basilicata in Italy, from Eleutherna in Crete, from Sindos in Thessaloniki are only a few examples of the exhibition which dazzles with its wealth of objects and personality

‘Princesses of the Mediterranean in the Dawn of History’ exhibition at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens, Greece. Image MCA The assembled artefacts

The various assemblages comprise bronze vases, bronze and iron implements, glass and faïence objects, terracotta, bronze, and ivory figurines.

There is a wealth of jewellery: gold, silver and bronze breastplates, belts, bracelets and armbands, earrings, finger rings, hair pins, and necklaces; bronze, iron, or silver fibulae; beads of faïence, amber, precious and semi-precious stones, such as amethyst, carnelian, rock crystal, and Egyptian blue; scarabs made of various materials; gold masks; various pins and pendants.

The jewellery displays a vast array of fine gold and silverwork techniques, such as pierced work, granulation, embossing, chasing, and decorative wire, which illustrate a world of high art and wealth. The famous wooden throne of a princess from a tomb at Verruchio (Italy) completes the display.

In an attempt to give a Mediterranean dimension to the role of women in the dawn of history, from the 10th century BCE to the Archaic period (6th century BCE), 24 assemblages of grave goods associated with women from Greece (Attica, Euboea, Macedonia, Crete), Cyprus, Southern Italy, and Etruria are on display.

Analysis of these specific burials reveals how, concentrations of grave gifts and the similarities in burial customs, establish a strong ideological connection and a collective social dimension between countries and civilizations; it appears that these women, who held high status positions in their societies, were carriers of cultural and social information.

The exhibition’s strength lies in the selection of artefacts belonging to real women from the past, rather than mythical figures such as Helen of Troy. A genuine, tangible dimension is provided, where specific women are shown to be the active protagonists in the society and consequently, the human element plays a definitive role. The opportunity is afforded to discuss the interpretative issues and approaches of a woman’s role in the Early Iron Age societies.

The making of an exhibition

 

The exhibition will run until 10 April, 2013.

 

Source: Cycladic Art Museum

More Information

• Princesses of the Mediterranean in the Dawn of History (website)
  13 December 2012 – 10 April 2013

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This article titled “Richard III’s scarred skeleton becomes a battlefield for academics” was written by Maev Kennedy, for The Guardian on Monday 4th February 2013 18.10 UTC

As in 1485, once the death of the king was confirmed, the arguments started. Was the search for the man in the car park a stunt and a media circus, or a classic piece of research archaeology based on sound science, which opens a window on a period of history fogged by Tudor propaganda?

The debate will certainly last longer than Richard’s two-year reign. Before the identification had even been formally confirmed, the redoubtable historian Mary Beard had waded in on Twitter: “Gt fun & a mystery solved that we’ve found Richard 3. But does it have any HISTORICAL significance? (Uni of Leics overpromoting itself?))”

Meanwhile, the bones that have just been confirmed as those of Richard III – the last Plantagenet king, the last monarch to die on a battlefield, whose death ushered in the upstart Tudors – lay quietly in a calm room on the second floor of the Leicester University library, unknown to many of the students bustling in and out of the building.

Inevitably, the press conference in another building – with 140 registered journalists and camera crews from seven countries – was controlled mayhem, but the university had gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the actual remains were treated with respect.

The press conference had revealed the appalling nature of the injuries inflicted in the last moments of Richard’s life and, perhaps even more gruesomely, in the hours afterwards.

But in the quiet room with the blinds drawn there were no banners, no university logos – still less those of the Channel 4 camera crew, which has been following the hunt from the start – just the bones, stained a reddish brown by their centuries in the clay, laid out on a black velvet cloth on four library tables pushed together, protected by a glass case. Journalists were invited to “bear witness”. All visitors, including university staff, had to sign a declaration that they would make no attempt to photograph or record anything, and that they would remain silent in the room where he lay, watched over by a security guard and two university chaplains.

The feet were missing, probably chopped off when a Victorian outhouse was built on the site of the long-lost Greyfriars church, missing the main skeleton by inches. The hands lay by his side, but as found suggested that he was buried with arms still bound, just as he was lugged from the battlefield. The skull lay with the largely undamaged face up – itself a significant and sinister point, according to the experts, hiding the savage blow to the base from a halberd, a fearsome medieval pike-like weapon, which sliced through bone and into the brain and would have killed him in seconds.

The shock was the spine, bent like an aerial view of the river Thames – it was not, after all, simply Tudor propaganda, which had portrayed the king as a twisted psychopath.

Jo Appleby, the bones expert who excavated the skeleton and has worked on it for months, said it was contorted by scoliosis, which set in some time after he was 10, from an unknown cause. She said it would have made Richard’s breathing increasingly more difficult, and taken inches off what would have been his full height of 5′ 8″ (172cm), a reasonably tall man for medieval times.

There was another sword slash to the skull, which would also have penetrated to the brain and proved fatal in moments, but the others came after death, and were described – in an image still resonant from many battlegrounds today – as “humiliation injuries”. They could not have happened to a man protected by armour, and are consistent with the accounts of his body being stripped on the battlefield, and brought back to Leicester naked, slung over the pommel of a horse. That, almost certainly, was when the thrusting injury through the right buttock and into the pelvis happened.

Professor Lin Foxhall, head of the university’s archaeology department, and Bob Savage, an expert on medieval weapons from the Royal Armouries, pointed out that Richard’s face was relatively undamaged.

“They’d killed the king and they needed to keep him recognisable,” Savage said. “To me, the injuries are fully consistent with the accounts of his dying in a melee, and [being] unhorsed – I believe he was dead within minutes of coming off his horse. But they took care not to bash the face about too much.”

“It’s the Gaddafi effect,” Foxhall said. “We saw just this in the horrible mobile-phone footage of Gaddafi being found, and you can hear the voices shouting ‘not the face, don’t touch the face’. It’s one of those dreadful lessons from history which we never learn.”

The grumbles that this was all show  business, not history, went on throughout the day. Neville Morley, professor of ancient history at the University of Bristol, muttered on his Bristol Classics blog: “Whoop-de-doo … Why is it that a skeleton is interesting only if it’s that of a famous person?”

On her History Matters blog, Catherine Fletcher, lecturer in public history at Sheffield University, wrote: “Imagine that the Leicester archaeologists had uncovered not a royal grave, but a grave of some peasant farmers, results from which completely changed the picture of what we know about human nutrition in the 15th century. Not so glamorous, but just as important in understanding the past – perhaps more so. They wouldn’t have the media pull of ‘England’s lost king’. Traditional ‘kings and queens’ history, so criticised over the decades by historians, still plays very well on TV.”

Foxhall, whose own field is the more ancient battlefields of Greece and Rome, said that to identify any named individual from such a remote period was “fantastically rare – and valuable. It’s the fact that he was a king that lets us get to the identification.”

Richard Buckley, the lead archaeologist on the project, pointed out that – apart from disentangling Richard’s last day on earth from the fog of Tudor propaganda, led by its most brilliant exponent, William Shakespeare – the story of the king from the car park is also another lost strand in the history of Leicester, wreathed in rumour, until now very short on fact.

Turi King, the researcher who confirmed the match of mitochondrial DNA – genetic material passed down through the mother’s line – between the skeleton and the Canadian-born Michael Ibsen, who is descended from Richard’s sister Anne of York, and with another newly identified but anonymous descendant, says the work continues. This phase was only completed on Saturday night, she said, but will be published in full in a peer-reviewed journal.

The city is wasting no time profiting from its day in the international media spotlight. A temporary exhibition opens this week in the Guildhall, near the site, and next year a permanent new visitor centre will open, possibly on the same day that the russet bones are re-interred in a newly designed tomb in the cathedral. Expect a few of the camera crews to return.

Meanwhile, Ibsen, the man whose spit proved the vital link across almost six centuries, grew more quiet and subdued as the day wore on. “My head is no clearer now than when I first heard the news,” he said.

“Many, many hundreds of people died on that field that day. He was a king, but just one of the dead. He lived in very violent times, and these deaths would not have been pretty – or quick.”

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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C ylindrical objects made usually of fired clay but sometimes of stone were found at the Yarmukian Pottery Neolithic sites of Sha‘ar HaGolan and Munhata (first half of the 8th millennium BP) in the Jordan Valley.

Similar objects have been reported from other Near Eastern Pottery Neolithic sites. Most scholars have interpreted them as cultic objects in the shape of phalli, while others have referred to them in more general terms as “clay pestles,” “clay rods,” and “cylindrical clay objects.”

Re-examination of these artefacts leads us to present a new interpretation of their function and to suggest a reconstruction of their technology and mode of use.

We suggest that these objects were components of fire drills and consider them the earliest evidence of a complex technology of fire ignition, which incorporates the cylindrical objects in the role of matches.

Citation: Goren-Inbar N, Freikman M, Garfinkel Y, Goring-Morris NA, Grosman L (2012) The Earliest Matches. PLoS ONE 7(8): e42213. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0042213

read the full research article here  www.plosone.org

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Workers at construction site 40 km north of Chennai come across rare, 8th century artefacts; archaeologists say this is the first Pallavan-era finding within city limits in recent times

Little did the villagers in Kattupalli near Minjur, some 40 km north of Chennai, realise that digging a pit to earn Rs. 180 a day would lead to an important archaeological discovery and the unearthing of a 1,200-year-old Pallava period structure — the first such finding within city limits in recent times.

State department archaeologists, who arrived at the site, said the idols were found at a depth of eight feet. They added that the idols were possibly part of an ancient temple, built during the late Pallava era in 8th century CE.

David Connolly‘s insight:

What a superb find!

Read the remarkable story here  at the hindu.com

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from ScienceNordic

Over the years, there has been much speculation regarding whether Irish monks may have travelled north across the sea to the Faroe Islands long before the Vikings ever arrived there.

However, despite the best efforts of scientists, researchers and archaeologists, nothing was uncovered that could prove the existence of settlers on the Faroes before the year 800 AD.

Until now!

Cereal pollen indicates early farming

Scientists from Aberdeen University in northeast Scotland have found something exciting in early Faroese pollen samples that gives them a reason to rethink Faroese prehistory: cereal pollen.

Kevin Edwards, a professor of physical geography and archaeology at Aberdeen University, tells ScienceNordic about the work:

”One of the main problems with cereal pollen is that it is produced in tiny quantities. Cereal pollen grains are also very large, and that means they don’t spread far with the wind. That’s why it’s so important to find.”

Now they have found cereal pollen in the early samples from the Islands there is just one problem: the soil where they found it is far from ideal for accurate pollen analysis, so they must try to discover more, but given the rarity it will be difficult.

<To read the full article in ScienceNordic – click here>

 

More Information

• Faroe Islands
• Kevin Edwards presented the Aberdeen researchers’ work at the ‘Nordlige Verdener’ (‘Northern Worlds’) conference held at the National Museum of Denmark in late November as part of a larger research project.
• The Northern Worlds project seeks to learn about the consequences of climate change, the human impact on landscapes and worldwide cultural contacts over time.
• Rhind Lectures at the Royal Society of Edinburgh.  Faroe

For Archaeology News – Archaeology Research – Archaeology Press Releases

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Dr John MacGinnis, a specialist in Assyrian civilisation at Cambridge University’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, will fly to the city of Erbil in north east Iraq. En route he will stop off in Turkey where for more than a decade he has been involved in the excavation at the Neo-Assyrian site of Ziyaret Tepe, the ancient garrison town of Tushan.

David Connolly‘s insight:

One of my favourite areas, where I spent much of my early career.  and what an opportunity for study!

See on www.pasthorizonspr.com

Dr John MacGinnis, a specialist in Assyrian civilisation at Cambridge University’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, will fly to the city of Erbil in north east Iraq. En route he will stop off in Turkey where for more than a decade he has been involved in the excavation at the Neo-Assyrian site of Ziyaret Tepe, the ancient garrison town of Tushan.

The capital city of today’s Kurdish Autonomous Region, Erbil is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and has retained its name (variously as Urbil, Arbil and Irbil) for more than 4,000 years. At its centre is a mound or tell that dates back more than 7,000 years. Such mounds, made by the continuous building and rebuilding of mud brick structures, are characteristic of the sites of Assyrian and other ancient near eastern cities.

Book launch

In Erbil Dr MacGinnis will launch his latest book Erbil in the Cuneiform Sources, a work documenting the history of this extraordinary city from the first references dating to the third millennium BC up until the time of Alexander the Great. He will also take part in meetings with archaeologists working for the Kurdish Regional Government which is investing substantial effort in re-establishing the cultural and social identity of a region that was for many years closed to outsiders under the Saddam regime and subsequent political upheavals.

“There is a huge amount to be learnt about the Assyrian civilisation from investigation of the thousands of Assyrian sites in north east Iraq, which was the hub of the empire.  These sites reflect every aspect of the civilisation – from royal palaces to centres for worship, from farming settlements to fortifications. Some are well known to local people, others have yet to be identified,” says Dr MacGinnis.

The opening up of the Kurdish Autonomous Region – a region roughly half the size of Wales that stretches from the River Tigris to the Zagros Mountains – to archaeological enquiry was one of the key themes to emerge from a conference held at Cambridge University last December. It was the first international conference ever to focus on the provincial archaeology of the Assyrian empire.

Opening up the possibility of exciting new discoveries

The emergence of the Kurdish Autonomous Region brings with it the possibility of the discovery of forgotten kingdoms and lost languages. “I hesitate to mention Indiana Jones – but the excitement that accompanies the chance to explore the archaeology of the area is tremendous,” says Dr MacGinnis.

“In some cases, it’s a question of looking at sites that we know exist and carrying out surveys and other fieldwork. In other cases it’s a question of looking for sites mentioned in cuneiform texts and seeing if we can locate them on the ground. Sometimes, as with Erbil, the ancient name may be preserved in the modern name. In still other cases, it’s a matter of discovering entirely new sites which have never been explored before.”

The Assyrian empire rivals those of the Romans, Egyptians and Babylonians in terms of its extent, ambition and organisation. Archaeologists have been working on the history of this great civilisation ever since the scholar and traveller Claudius Rich, Resident of the East India Company in Baghdad,  measured the towering mud brick walls of Nineveh in 1820, thus laying the foundations for the exploration of Assyria.

Cambridge has a distinguished history in the discipline with some of the most famous names in the field coming from the university. They include CHW Johns, who from 1895 held the University’s first post in Assyriology and went on to become Master of St Catharine’s College, and Professor David Oates, who worked on some of the greatest excavations of the 1950s and 1960s.

The current Eric Yarrow Professor of Assyriology, Professor Nicholas Postgate has worked extensively on the decipherment of Assyrian cuneiform texts as well as directing some of the leading field projects of the past few decades. Dr Augusta MacMahon, the University’s Senior Lecturer in Middle Eastern Archaeology, is another key scholar in this tradition, while Dr Martin Worthington is revolutionising the study of Mesopotamian literature by applying principals of textual criticism of the sort which have been applied to classical manuscripts for generations but hardly applied to cuneiform texts at all.

As a centre for scholarship, Cambridge made an excellent base for the first ever international conference to focus on the provincial archaeology of the Assyrian empire. The meeting brought together researchers from Europe, the Middle East and North America to share their knowledge of a wide range of fields.  “Feedback suggests that the conference came at exactly the right time in fostering renewed interest in this aspect of archaeology,” said Dr MacGinnis.

“We were especially honoured to have the participation of Dr Ali Jaboori from the University of Mosul who is directing field work at Nineveh and who was able to tell us about the resumption of excavation at Kuyunjik, the great palace mound of this imperial metropolis.”

Relief showing an Assyrian Lionhunt from the north palace Ninevah 645-635 BC. Image: Wikimedia Commons, used under a CC BY-SA 3.0 A strict military hierarchy

The Assyrian empire expanded by swallowing up smaller kingdoms and installing provincial rulers. At its peak from the 9th to 7th centuries BC, the empire encompassed a huge swathe of territories. It was an empire characterised by a strict military hierarchy, with the tiers descending from the king at the top down to foot soldiers at the bottom. Its dominance was based on a mastery of metal weaponry, and its authority was feared. As the empire expanded, so did its needs for raw materials such as people, horses, wood and grain.

How these resources were controlled and allocated was recorded by the Assyrians in inscriptions written in cuneiform script incised into clay tablets. Extensive libraries of these tablets – which also record many other aspects of life – were found both at Nineveh and also at other sites scattered across the empire. Many are now in the British Museum. Deciphered by scholars they provide an extraordinarily detailed account of the organisation of the Assyrian empire.

Archaeological investigations have unsurprisingly focused on some of the great cities of the Assyrian empire, among them Nineveh and Nimrud, both of which were capitals at different times and which have yielded huge amounts of information. Provincial settlements are also interesting for their diversity and, in many respects, tell a different story, each one reflecting regional differences as Assyrian rulers embraced aspects of local culture – such as religious beliefs. A good example here is the discovery that in the northwestern part of the empire there was a tradition of ‘cremation burials’, a practice not found in the Assyrian heartland.

Racing the sunrise to prepare the excavation area for photography. Image: Ziyaret Tepe Archaeological Expedition Field Director at Ziyaret Tepe

Dr MacGinnis is best known for his work as a field director at Ziyaret Tepe (site of the provincial Assyrian city of Tushan) on the northernmost border of Assyria (an area that is part of modern day Turkey). Some 12 years of survey and excavation at Tepe have revealed the layout of this provincial capital with its palace, administrative centre, streets and outer walls.

A development highlighted by the conference is the growing use of ‘overhead’ imagery (satellite and aerial photographs) in the detection and mapping of the region’s archaeological remains. Such imagery can both improve our understanding of a site and lead to the discovery of previously unknown sites – and not just settlement sites but other features such as road networks, river beds and irrigation systems. Such material can be irreplaceable as the imagery from earlier decades may preserve evidence which no longer exists on the ground.

A tablet found at the site in 2009, and deciphered by Dr MacGinnis, proves to be a list of women whose names appear to indicate the existence of a previously unknown language; this is likely to be either Shubrian, the indigenous language of the people who lived in the area of Tushan prior to the Assyrian arrival, or perhaps a language spoken by deportees taken from the Zagros mountains which now form the border between Iraq and Iran.

Dr MacGinnis says: “Our discovery of this latest tablet at Ziyaret Tepe was thrilling as it suggests that there is so much more to be learnt – there will be exciting discoveries for generations to come. The conference held at Cambridge last month represented a real step forward, bringing together scholars from across the region – everyone made new friends and contacts. It came at the perfect time, pooling the knowledge and understanding won over past decades in order to feed into and inform this resurgence of research in Iraq.”

Source: University of Cambridge

More Information

• Nováček, K. (Ed.) 2007: Research of the Citadel at Arbil, Kurdish Autonomous Region, Iraq – First Season (Joint Archaeological Training Program, Arbil 2006), Final Report. Plzeň (English with Arabic summary).
• Unspoiled mountain scenery and a wealth of human history – Department of Foreign Relations – Kurdistan Regional Government
• Ziyaret Tepe: an Assyrian provincial capital on the northern imperial frontier

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Archaeologist Jake Streatfeild-James with a Georgian sixpence found at the Infirmary Street site

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered a slice of Georgian history on the former site of the Royal Infirmary hospital.

Pottery, bits of bottle, coins and buttons from the 18th century were found by workers at what is now Edinburgh University’s High School Yards.

A dig took place after contractors drafted in to lay utilities uncovered a series of outer walls from the old Royal’s Surgical Hospital, which was built on the site in 1738. Among the highlights was a sixpenny piece dating from 1816 and the reign of George IV.

High School Yards was once the site of Blackfriars Monastery, which was founded in 1230 by King Alexander II.

The monastery and church were destroyed in 1558 by a mob, who were followers of John Knox’s reformation. Stone from the ruined buildings was quickly reused for other buildings.

Read the full article in scotsman.com

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A gruesome discovery first came to light in winter 2007 in looters holes at an excavation site in Lake Xaltocan, a drained lake in the northern basin of Mexico where Georgia State University’s Christopher Morehart and his wife were studying ancient agricultural technologies and how people interacted with their environment.

An unexpected find

What they had found was unexpected and has led to some startling speculation. Up to 200 severed heads were located in ghoulish rows at what would have been a small, unremarkable shrine in an agricultural setting, rather than the more typical, if no less disturbing, larger temple complexes.

“My wife and I were noticing that they were cranial material,” Morehart recounted the initial moments of discovery. “She put her hand in the dirt, felt like she had a big shard, and it was the entire frontal of a cranium. My very easy, straightforward agricultural study just took a turn to being a more complex study.”

Christopher Morehart (left), assistant professor of anthropology, leads an excavation at a site of human sacrifice in Mexico.

Morehart, with fellow researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the support of the National Geographic Society, has been working at the Xaltocan site ever since this 2007 discovery to learn more about the location where human sacrifice took place.

Further excavation from that initial research revealed at least 31 individuals had been sacrificed, with their skulls lined up toward the east.

A time of sacrifice and war

It is clear that these people had been sacrificed and decapitated at a time between AD 660 and 890. This coincided with the collapse of nearby Teotihuacan and the later rise of the Aztec, known as the Epiclassic period.

Among the important markers of this period is evidence for the “collapse” of Classic Maya culture in the southern lowlands, including frequent images of warfare and sacrifice.

Human sacrifice took place throughout the region during that  period, both at Teotihuacan and in the later Aztec Empire, but most of those rituals happened at great pyramids within cities and were tied to state powers.

The researchers found figures similar to deities worshipped in the region, such as Tlaloc, the god of rain and water, buried with the skulls.

“There was a ritual going on where offerings were being given to gods associated with the Earth, gods associated with rain and also integrating human sacrifice, which at the same time has connotations of violence, conflict and warfare,” Morehart said.

Some of the skulls had been purposely flattened or elongated while the victims were children – an ancient ritual known as cranial deformation while others were found with finger bones inserted into the eye sockets but the significance of this remains unknown.

Christopher Morehart, said that so far, between 150 and 200 adult skulls – which were carefully arranged in rows facing east towards the rising sun – had been excavated from fields that stand on a former lake bed.

Physical anthropologist Abigail Meza Penaloza of the Institute of Anthropology at Mexico’s National University said her team was still cleaning and assembling the skulls, but had a confirmed count of 130 so far, all of which appear to be of adult males.

Ms Meza Penaloza said it was the first find of its kind, both because of the location – a small, artificial mound built in the middle of an agricultural field – and the kind of decapitations carried out there. She said mass sacrifices had been documented at temple inaugurations of temple closings, but never in the middle of fields.

Artefact depicting the Pre-Columbian water god Tlaloc, found at the human sacrifice site at Lake Xaltocan, Mexico.
Image: Christopher Morehart Rituals continued after the sacrifices end

The researchers found pollen that has been connected to both ceremonially significant flowers and the burning of incense. They have found that people continued to conduct rituals at the spot even after the period of sacrifices.

As later and different peoples arrived in the area, they most likely recognized the sacred significance of the site. They did not continue human sacrifice, but performed rituals and even directed a major canal right through the shrine.

Even today, it’s a site of ritual as Morehart’s team found evidence of contemporary rituals such as burying “spell bags” at the site in 2012.

“It’s a fascinating area in terms of long-term continuity and ritual, and it fits very well into my interests into understanding how people interact with their environment in multiple ways,” Morehart said. “This provides us with insight into how religion and practices are also relevant in understanding how people interact with their environment.”

During 2012, Morehart used the support of a National Geographic Society grant to dig further, finding even more skulls that are still under analysis by researchers at UNAM.

Depiction of a tzompantli (“skull rack”), right half of image; associated with the depiction of Aztec temple dedicated to the deity Huitzilopochtli. From the 1587 Aztec manuscript, the Codex Tovar. Image: Wikimedia Commons, used under a CC BY-SA 3.0

Source: Georgia State University

More Information

• Human Sacrifice During the Epiclassic Period in the Northern Basin of Mexico Latin American Antiquity, Volume 23, Number 4 / December 2012

• Christopher T. Morehart, Abigail Meza Peñaloza, Carlos Serrano Sánchez, Emily McClung de Tapia and Emilio Ibarra Morales  [paid access]Christopher T. Morehart (2012) Mapping ancient chinampa landscapes in the Basin of Mexico: a remote sensing and GIS approach,  Journal of Archaeological Science Volume 39, Issue 7, July 2012, Pages 2541–2551

• For more about anthropology at Georgia State, visit cas.gsu.edu/anthropology.

• Epiclassic (AD 800 – 1000) – term used to refer to the events that characterize the transition between the end of the Late Classic period and the beginning of the Postclassic.  Among the important markers of this period is evidence for the “collapse” of Classic Maya culture in the southern lowlands, including frequent images of warfare and sacrifice.  At the sites of Dos Pilas, Aguateca, and Punta de Chimino in the Petexbatún region of Guatemala there is evidence for defensive fortifications in response to large-scale warfare as well as significant environmental degradation.  By contrast, in the northern lowlands (the Yucatán Peninsula), this period sees the flourishing of Maya culture at sites like Uxmal, Sayil, and Chichén Itzá.  Here, the Epiclassic period is marked by increasing evidence for contact with cultures from the Gulf Coast and Central Mexico.

In central Mexico, the Epiclassic is the period during which important centres like Cholula, Cacaxtla, and Xochicalco rise to prominence.  There is evidence for a continuity of rituals similar to those practised at Teotihuacan.  Many Epiclassic centres may have had populations that included the descendants of prominent lineages and refugees from Teotihuacan. [ Kansas Uni chronology ] For Archaeology News – Archaeology Research – Archaeology Press Releases

What came first: the bipedal human ancestor or the grassland encroaching on the forest? A new analysis of the past 12 million years’ of vegetation change in the cradle of humanity is challenging long-held beliefs about the world in which our ancestors took shape – and, by extension, the impact it had on them.

The research combines sediment core studies of the waxy molecules from plant leaves with pollen analysis, yielding data of unprecedented scope and detail on what types of vegetation dominated the landscape surrounding the African Rift Valley (including present-day Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia), where early hominin fossils trace the history of human evolution.

“It is the combination of evidence both molecular and pollen evidence that allows us to say just how long we’ve seen Serengeti-type open grasslands,” said Sarah J. Feakins, assistant professor of Earth sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and lead author of the study, which was published online in Geology.

Feakins worked with USC graduate student Hannah M. Liddy, USC undergraduate student Alexa Sieracki, Naomi E. Levin of Johns Hopkins University, Timothy I. Eglinton of the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule and Raymonde Bonnefille of the Université d’Aix-Marseille.

A century long debate

The role that the environment played in the evolution of hominins—the tribe of human and ape ancestors whose family tree split from the ancestors of chimpanzees and bonobos about 6 million years ago—has been the subject of a century-long debate.

Among other things, one theory dating back to 1925 posits that early human ancestors developed bipedalism as a response to savannas encroaching on shrinking forests in northeast Africa. With fewer trees to swing from, human ancestors began walking to get around.

Rainforests had already disappeared

While the shift to bipedalism appears to have occurred somewhere between 6 and 4 million years ago, Feakins’ study finds that thick rainforests had already disappeared by that point—replaced by grasslands and seasonally dry forests some time before 12 million years ago.

In addition, the tropical C4-type grasses and shrubs of the modern African savannah began to dominate the landscape earlier than thought, replacing C3-type grasses that were better suited to a wetter environment. (The classification of C4 versus C3 refers to the manner of photosynthesis each type of plant utilizes.)

Cross-referenced findings

While earlier studies on vegetation change through this period relied on the analysis of individual sites throughout the Rift Valley—offering narrow snapshots—Feakins took a look at the whole picture by using a sediment core taken in the Gulf of Aden, where winds funnel and deposit sediment from the entire region. She then cross-referenced her findings with Levin who compiled data from ancient soil samples collected throughout eastern Africa.

“The combination of marine and terrestrial data enable us to link the environmental record at specific fossil sites to regional ecological and climate change,” Levin said.

In addition to informing scientists about the environment that our ancestors took shape in, Feakins’ study provides insights into the landscape that herbivores (horses, hippos and antelopes) grazed, as well as how plants across the landscape reacted to periods of global and regional environmental change.

“The types of grasses appear to be sensitive to global carbon dioxide levels,” said Liddy, who is currently working to refine the data pertaining to the Pliocene, to provide an even clearer picture of a period that experienced similar atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to present day. “There might be lessons in here for the future viability of our C4-grain crops,” says Feakins.

Source: University of Southern California

More Information

• Northeast African vegetation change over 12 m.y. Geology, G33845.1, first published on January 17, 2013, doi:10.1130/G33845.1 Sarah J. Feakins, Naomi E. Levin, Hannah M. Liddy, Alexa Sieracki, Timothy I. Eglinton, and Raymonde Bonnefille.

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Researchers from Royal Holloway and the Sandia National Laboratories along with 13 other universities across the United States and Europe, challenge the belief that a large impact or airburst comet or asteroid caused a significant and abrupt change to the Earth’s climate and terminated the Clovis culture. They argue that other explanations must be found for the apparent disappearance.

There was no impact

In simple terms, comet explosions did not end the prehistoric Clovis culture in North America 13,000 years ago, the research is published in the journal Geophysical Monograph Series.

The researchers point to the twin issues of both appropriately sized impact craters from that time period having yet been discovered, nor any unambiguously “shocked” materials found.

In addition, proposed fragmentation and explosion mechanisms “do not conserve energy or momentum,” a basic law of physics that must be satisfied for impact-caused climate change to have any validity, the authors write.

Physics-based models that support the impact hypothesis are in general absent, and those that do exist, contradict the asteroid-impact hypothesizers.

The authors also charge that “several independent researchers have been unable to reproduce reported results” and that samples presented in support of the asteroid impact hypothesis were later discovered by carbon dating to be contaminated with modern material.

Clovis and nano-diamonds The hallmarks include lumps of glasslike carbon (top), carbon spherules (middle, in cross section), and magnetic grains rich in iridium (bottom). A layer of carbon-rich sediment (arrow) found here at Murray Springs, Ariz.©Cannon Microprobe

Clovis is the name archaeologists have given to the earliest well-established human culture in the North American continent. It is named after the town in New Mexico, where distinct stone tools were found in the 1920s and 1930s.

Sandia lead author Mark Boslough is a well respected expert on all things extra-terrestrial and comet related, and has come to the fore as a public voice  since his physics based predictions of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact on Jupiter were shown to be absolutely correct.

In the Clovis case, Boslough felt that his ideas were taken further than he could accept when other researchers claimed that the purported demise of Clovis culture in North America was the result of climate change produced by a cluster of comet fragments striking Earth.

In a widely reported press conference announcing the Clovis comet hypothesis in 2007, proponents showed a National Geographic animation based on one of Boslough’s simulations as inspiration for their idea.

Confronted by apparently hard asteroid evidence, as well as a Nova documentary and an article in the journal Science, all purportedly showing his error in rebutting the comet hypothesis, Boslough ordered carbon dating of the major evidence provided by the opposition: nanodiamond-bearing carbon spherules associated with the shock of an asteroid’s impact. The tests found the alleged 13,000-year-old carbon to be of very recent formation.

While this raised red flags to those already critical of the impact hypothesis, “I never said the samples were salted,” Boslough said carefully. “I said they were contaminated.”

That find, along with irregularities reported in the background of one member of the opposing team, was enough for Nova to remove the entire episode from its list of science shows available for streaming, Boslough said.

From Clovis to Folsom Point technology

“Just because a culture changed from Clovis to Folsom spear points didn’t mean their civilization collapsed,” he said. “They probably just used another technology. It’s like saying the phonograph culture collapsed and was replaced by the iPod culture.”

Clovis is the name archaeologists have given to the earliest well-established human culture in the North American continent. Clovis people were probably not the first people in the American continents but seem to have been the first big game hunters of the Paleoindian tradition. Their Clovis technology demise coincides with the extinction of the continents megafauna.  However, the following technological culture, called Folsom, clearly shows that people were not ‘wiped out’, but rather altered stone technology to the new form.

Co-author Professor Andrew Scott from the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway has remarked that “The theory has reached zombie status,  and whenever we are able to show flaws [in the theory] and think it is dead, it reappears with new, equally unsatisfactory, arguments.”

The researcher hopes new versions of the theory will be more carefully examined before they are published.

Source: University of Royal Holloway London/Sandia National Laboratories 

More Information Boslough, M., et al. (2012), Arguments and evidence against a Younger Dryas impact event, in Climates, Landscapes, and Civilizations, Geophys. Monogr. Ser., vol. 198, edited by L. Giosan et al. 13–26, AGU, Washington, D. C., doi:10.1029/2012GM001209.J. R. Marlon, P. J. Bartlein, M. K. Walsh, S. P. Harrison, et al. Wildfire responses to abrupt climate change in North America. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, DOI: 10.1073_pnas.0808212106

• Pringle, H., 2008, Firestorm from space wiped out prehistoric Americans. The New Scientist. vol. 194, no. 2605, pp. 8-9.
• West, A., and A. Goodyear, 2008, The Clovis Comet: Part I:Evidence for a Cosmic Collision 12,900 Years Ago. Mammoth Trumpet. v. 23, no. 1, pp. 1–4.
• “The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis”. Scientific American Blog Network. Retrieved 2012-04-15.

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For centuries, the fate of the original Otomí inhabitants of Xaltocan, the capital of a pre-Aztec Mexican city-state, has remained unknown. Researchers have long wondered whether they assimilated with the Aztecs or abandoned the town altogether.

Xaltocan was a pre-Columbian city-state and island in the Valley of Mexico, located in the centre of Lake Xaltocan, part of an interconnected shallow lake system which included Lake Texcoco. The site was originally settled by the Otomi people. Map of the Valley of Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest showing the location of lake Xaltocan. Image: Wikimedia Commons

According to new anthropological research from The University of Texas at Austin, Wichita State University and Washington State University, the answers may lie in DNA. Following this line of evidence, the researchers theorize that some original Otomies, possibly elite rulers, may have fled the town. Their exodus may have led to the reorganization of the original residents within Xaltocan, or to the influx of new residents, who may have intermarried with the Otomí population.

Tracking the biological comings and goings of the Otomí

Using ancient DNA (aDNA) sampling, Jaime Mata-Míguez, an anthropology graduate student and lead author of the study, tracked the biological comings and goings of the Otomí people following the incorporation of Xaltocan into the Aztec empire. The study, published in American Journal of Physical Anthropology, is the first to provide genetic evidence for the anthropological cold case.

Otomi skull. Image: Lisa Overholtzer, Wichita State University

Learning more about changes in the size, composition, and structure of past populations helps anthropologists understand the impact of historical events, including imperial conquest, colonization, and migration, Mata-Míguez says. The case of Xaltocan is extremely valuable because it provides insight into the effects of Aztec imperialism on Mesoamerican populations.

Historical documents suggest that residents fled Xaltocan in 1395 AD, and that the Aztec ruler sent taxpayers to resettle the site in 1435 AD. Yet archaeological evidence indicates some degree of population stability across the imperial transition, deepening the mystery. Recently unearthed human remains from before and after the Aztec conquest at Xaltocan provide the rare opportunity to examine this genetic transition.

Sampling 25 bodies recovered from patios

As part of the study, Mata-Míguez and his colleagues sampled mitochondrial aDNA from 25 bodies recovered from patios outside excavated houses in Xaltocan. They found that the pre-conquest maternal aDNA did not match those of the post-conquest era. These results are consistent with the idea that the Aztec conquest of Xaltocan had a significant genetic impact on the town.

Mata-Míguez suggests that long-distance trade, population movement and the reorganization of many conquered populations caused by Aztec imperialism could have caused similar genetic shifts in other regions of Mexico as well.

In focusing on mitochondrial DNA, this study only traced the history of maternal genetic lines at Xaltocan. Future aDNA analyses will be needed to clarify the extent and underlying causes of the genetic shift, but this study suggests that Aztec imperialism may have significantly altered at least some Xaltocan households.

Source: The University of Texas at Austin

More Information

• The Otomi
• The Genetic Impact of Aztec Imperialism: Ancient Mitochondrial DNA Evidence From Xaltocan, Mexico - Jaime Mata-Mı´guez, Lisa Overholtzer, Enrique Rodrı´guez-Alegrı´a, Brian M. Kemp and Deborah A. Bolnick

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New research in the current issue of the journal Geoarchaeology, offers compelling evidence that one of the massive earthen mounds at Poverty Point was constructed in less than 90 days, and perhaps as quickly as 30 days — an incredible accomplishment for what was thought to be a loosely organized society consisting of small, widely scattered bands of foragers.

“Our findings go against what has long been considered the academic consensus on hunter-gatherer societies — that they lack the political organization necessary to bring together so many people to complete a labour-intensive project in such a short period,” says study co-author T.R. Kidder, PhD, professor and chair of anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

A detailed constructional analysis

Co-authored by Anthony Ortmann, PhD, assistant professor of geosciences at Murray State University in Kentucky, the study offers a detailed analysis of how the massive mound was constructed some 3,200 years ago along a Mississippi River bayou in northeastern Louisiana.

Study co-authors Anthony Ortmann (standing) and T.R. Kidder (centre) evaluate the Mound A excavations at Poverty Point. Katherine Adeslberger (then a Washington University graduate student, now professor at Knox College (seated left) and Rachel Bielitz (then a Washington University undergraduate student) look on. Image: WUSTL

Based on more than a decade of excavations, core samplings and sophisticated sedimentary analysis, the key assertion is that Mound A at Poverty Point had to have been built in a very short period because an exhaustive examination reveals no signs of rainfall or erosion during its construction.

“We’re talking about an area of northern Louisiana that now tends to receive a great deal of rainfall,” Kidder says. “Even in a very dry year, it would seem very unlikely that this location could go more than 90 days without experiencing some significant level of rainfall. Yet, the soil in these mounds shows no sign of erosion taking place during the construction period. There is no evidence from the region of an epic drought at this time, either.”

Final addition to the site

Part of a much larger complex of earthen works at Poverty Point, Mound A is believed to be the final and crowning addition to the sprawling 700-acre site, which includes five smaller mounds and a series of six concentric C-shaped embankments that rise in parallel formation surrounding a small flat plaza along the river. At the time of construction, Poverty Point was the largest earthworks in North America.

Built on the western edge of the complex, Mound A covers about 538,000 square feet [roughly 50,000 square metres] at its base and rises 72 feet above the river. Its construction required an estimated 238,500 cubic metres of soil to be brought in from various locations near the site. Kidder figures it would take a modern, 10-wheel dump truck about 31,217 loads to move that much dirt today.

“The Poverty Point mounds were built by people who had no access to domesticated draft animals, no wheelbarrows, no sophisticated tools for moving earth,” Kidder explains.

To complete such a task within 90 days, the study estimates it would require the full attention of some 3,000 labourers. Assuming that each worker may have been accompanied by at least two other family members, say a wife and a child, the community gathered for the build must have included as many as 9,000 people, the study suggests.

“Given that a band of 25-30 people is considered quite large for most hunter-gatherer communities, it’s truly amazing that this ancient society could bring together a group of nearly 10,000 people, find some way to feed them and get this mound built in a matter of months,” Kidder says.

A map of the Poverty Point earthworks site. Image: Wikimedia Commons Site first cleared for construction by burning

Soil testing indicates that the mound is located on top of land that was once low-lying swamp or marsh land — evidence of ancient tree roots and swamp life still exists in undisturbed soils at the base of the mound. Tests confirm that the site was first cleared for construction by burning and quickly covered with a layer of fine silt soil. A mix of other heavier soils then were brought in and dumped in small adjacent piles, gradually building the mound layer upon layer.

As Kidder notes, previous theories about the construction of most of the world’s ancient earthen mounds have suggested that they were laid down slowly over a period of hundreds of years involving small contributions of material from many different people spanning generations of a society. While this may be the case for other earthen structures at Poverty Point, the evidence from Mound A offers a sharp departure from this accretional theory.

Kidder’s home base in St. Louis is just across the Mississippi River from one of America’s best known ancient earthen structures, the Monk Mound at Cahokia, Ill. He notes that the Monk Mound was built many centuries later than the mounds at Poverty Point by a civilization that was much more reliant on agriculture, a far cry from the hunter-gatherer group that built Poverty Point. Even so, Mound A at Poverty Point is much larger than almost any other mound found in North America; only Monk’s Mound at Cahokia is larger.

“We’ve come to realize that the social fabric of these societies must have been much stronger and more complex that we might previously have given them credit. These results contradict the popular notion that pre-agricultural people were socially, politically, and economically simple and unable to organize themselves into large groups that could build elaborate architecture or engage in so-called complex social behaviour,” Kidder says. “The prevailing model of hunter-gatherers living a life ‘nasty, brutish and short’ is contradicted and our work indicates these people were practising a sophisticated ritual/religious life that involved building these monumental mounds.”

Source: Washington University in St. Louis

More Information

• The U.S. Department of the Interior issues a news release Jan. 17, 2013, on its nomination of the Poverty Point site for inclusion in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List.  The DOI news release is available here.

• Poverty Point – National Park Service

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Searching for a lost royal city is not something that you are able to carry out very often, but Geoff Emberling from the University of Michigan is doing just that.

Lost Nubian city Map of kingdoms, states and tribes in 400 BC Africa.

The ancient capital he is searching for was ruled by the kings of Nubia, which now lies in northern Sudan, just south of Egypt. Surprisingly little is known about the kings who appeared on the historical stage about 900 BCE and conquered the lands of Pharaonic Egypt before fading back into the desert.

“We have no idea where these kings came from,” said Emberling, a research scientist at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan. “They basically appeared out of nowhere.”

Nubia, also known as Kush, was one of Africa’s earliest centres of political authority, wealth and military power. But because of the lack of information about Nubia, it has always been on the periphery of the larger discussions about the rise and fall of civilizations, unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Kush was conquered by the Egyptian empire of the New Kingdom beginning in about 1550 BCE. With the collapse of Egyptian control in the years after 1100 BCE, little is known about Kush, although new excavations are beginning to some shed light.

However, it is known that after 900 BC, a new political centre had emerged at El Kurru, where a series of burials, beginning with Nubian-style tumuli, developed into Egyptian-style royal pyramids and marks the rise of the Napatan dynasty. The kings buried here would conquer Egypt and rule as its 25th Dynasty, and are sometimes known as the “Black Pharaohs.” They would also fight against the invading Assyrian Empire in battles described in the Hebrew Bible.

Remains of the pyramid of Piye. Image: Geoff Emberling A lack of research

Indeed much of the archaeological research that has been carried out has focused on tombs and temples in the Nubian capital of El Kurru, Emberling said.

“There has been a real lack of excavation of settlements, where you find out where people actually lived on a daily basis,” he explained. “I’m excited about filling in that picture.”

Emberling set off for El Kurru in the last week of December 2012 and planned to stay for six weeks, surveying near a stretch of the Nile River that flows through the Sahara Desert.

The intention is to locate the city’s remains and prepare a basic survey of the layout with some limited excavation.

Emberling has a general idea about where to dig, based on the notebooks of George Reisner, an American archaeologist who excavated Nubian pyramids in 1918-19. Reisner’s notes mentioned a long city wall with a gate facing the Nile. He also said there was a well that could have been big enough to be part of a palace. But the site was never excavated and disappeared beneath the sand.

“One of the challenges is that the city’s remnants are completely invisible on the site today,” Emberling said. “Since Reisner was only doing this in his notes, there is nothing to locate where any of this was.”

Emberling is working with archaeologists from Denmark and Sudan using a variety of techniques: satellite imagery, topographic surveys, magnetometry and geological coring.

“We might not find the city,” he said. “It might be that a Nile flood destroyed things to a degree. It might be that the remains were pretty ephemeral to begin with. We’ll see.”

Expedition to Nubia
Dr. Mohamed (left) and Geoff Emberling

The Nubian Expedition of the Kelsey Museum aims to relocate this ancient royal capital to help to understand the rise of the Napatan dynasty as well as provide insight into society in Kush during this time.

In recent years, Sudan has been better known as a place of civil war and genocide as well as a base for Al Qaeda. But Emberling said throughout all the unrest and violence, archaeologists have worked without interruption in the northern part of the country.

“It’s not nearly as scary as it sounds,” he added. “I’ve loved working with the Sudanese.”

Emberling added that for the most part, archaeology is not politicized in Sudan as it is in other countries.

“We’re able to just be archaeologists and focus on our work, without worrying about how it will affect claims of different ethnic groups or territorial boundaries, so that’s a relief.”

Source: University of Michigan

More Information

• University of Michigan Nubian Expedition – Geoff Emberling, Director
• Kingdom of Kush
• The Cemetery of el-Kurru  Brian Yare – Summer 2006
• D. M. Dixon, The Origin of the Kingdom of Kush (Napata-Meroë), The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 50 (Dec., 1964), pp. 121-132

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