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Ancient Cemetery Found; Brings "Green Sahara" to Life

Phoenix Faust — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 21:30:39 GMT

Christine Dell'Amore
National Geographic News
August 14, 2008

Dinosaur hunters have stumbled across the largest and oldest Stone Age cemetery in the Sahara desert.

Paleontologist Paul Sereno and his team were scouring the rocks between harsh dunefields in northern Niger for dinosaur bones in 2000 when they stumbled across the graveyard, on the shores of a long-gone lake.

The scientists eventually uncovered 200 burials of two vastly different cultures that span five thousand years—the first time such a site has been found at a single site.

Called Gobero, the area is a uniquely preserved record of human habitation and burials from the Kiffian (7700 to 6200 B.C.) and the Tenerian (5200 to 2500 B.C.) cultures, says a new study led by Sereno of the University of Chicago.

The "watershed" find also offers a new window into how these tribes lived and buried their dead during the extreme Holocene period, when a grassy Sahara dried up in the world's largest desert.

Coming across such a site "sends a tingle up your spine," said Sereno, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

"You're not looking at [dinosaurs], you're looking at your own species."

One of the most striking discoveries was what the research team calls the "Stone Age Embrace": A woman, possibly a mother, and two children laid to rest holding hands, arms outstretched toward each other, on a bed of flowers.

Sereno and colleagues have also made several dinosaur discoveries in the region, including the bizarre cow-like dino Nigersaurus and the bus-size SuperCroc.

Green Desert

A wobble in Earth's orbit—along with other environmental factors that occurred about 12,000 years ago—brought intense monsoons to the Sahara, greening the desert and attracting a wave of human inhabitants, according to Sereno and colleagues.

Scientists already knew that the hunter-gatherer Kiffian occupied the region during a temperate phase. Between 6200 and 5200 B.C., one of the most severe climatic fluxes in that period's history desiccated the land and forced people out, the authors say. Soon afterward a second group arrived, the Tenerian.

But evidence of such population shifts rested largely on tool artifacts, with few human skeletons to analyze—until now. Radiocarbon dating of the bones has provided an "outstanding record" of the ancient Saharans, Sereno said.

"We have the Green Sahara written in those sand dunes, and the people who lived in it," he added.

Skeleton Clues

The team discovered that the older group, the Kiffian, were buried with harpoon points and bone fishhooks, along with 6-foot (1.8-meter) Nile perch skeletons.

The presence of the fish bones and tools suggested the lake water was deeper around 7000 B.C., though probably no more than ten feet deep (three meters), Sereno said. The bones of catfish and tilapia in Tenerian burials suggest the lake was shallower later in the Holocene.

A ridge on a male Kiffian thighbone also told bioarchaeologist Chris Stojanowski of Arizona State University that the people—who ranged from six feet two inches (185 centimeters) to six feet eight inches (203 centimeters) tall—had huge leg muscles, likely from a high-protein diet and strenuous lifestyle.

The Tenerian thighbone, on the other hand, had a smaller ridge, indicating a smaller build. To adapt to an arid climate, Tenerians had a more diverse palate, including clams, fish, and savanna animals, the study says.

Stefan Krõpelin, of the Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Cologne, finds the site impressive.

But he points out that it is a single location situated in a unique landscape at the foot of the Aïr Mountains, and shouldn't be linked to broader ancient climatic changes in the Sahara.

"Reasons behind an interruption in local human occupation of the region may have been related to a variety of socioeconomic or cultural changes, and not necessarily to general climatic deterioration throughout the Sahara," he said.

Krõpelin doubts there will be much support for the theory of a thousand-year break in rainfall throughout the entire Sahara around 6200 to 5200 B.C.

But Sereno said that the general climate record, bolstered by lake-core samples and solid animal and pollen evidence, points to this "arid interruption" period that separates the Kiffian and Tenerian.

The new study appears today in the journal PLoS One.

Stone Age Embrace

Grave goods, such as bones or tusks from wild animals—including warthogs, crocodiles, and hippos, many of which roam southern Africa today—ceramics, and ivory and shell ornaments were also found, shedding light on funerary rituals.

Perhaps most incredible was the 2006 discovery the Stone Age Embrace—a Tenerian woman facing the remains of two young children, their arms posed and hands interlaced. Pollen remnants from underneath the skeletons shows the dead had been laid on a bed of flowers. "This is a landmark burial—there's nothing like it in prehistory," Sereno said.

Though the site has provided a wealth of insights into the little-studied cultures, mysteries still persist, Sereno says.

Most puzzling is how the Tenerian dug new graves alongside the Kiffian dead without disturbing them—an "absolutely remarkable" feat, Sereno said.

The graves were also, for the most part, not clustered according to tribe—suggesting that the graves may have been marked, Arizona State's Stojanowski said.

But it's obvious why the two cultures likely buried their dead at Gobero: It was the "Daytona Beach of the Holocene," Sereno said.

"It was a strip of obviously desirable real estate that stuck out into the lake"—an ideal place to spot fish and incoming animals, he said.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080814-sereno-sahara-missions_2.html

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Church from underwater city found

bobs — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:13:19 GMT

A medieval church which tumbled from an eroding cliff into the sea has been rediscovered by marine archaeologists.

They believe the ruins they have found are St John's church, the biggest in Dunwich - the lost city of "Atlantis" off the coast of Suffolk.

Dunwich was once a thriving metropolis before being swallowed up by the North Sea more than five centuries ago.

Experts are using the latest acoustic imaging technology to uncover clues about the lost city in the North Sea.

Stuart Bacon, director of Suffolk Underwater Studies, said: "We've found the ruins of a medieval church called St John's, which was the biggest in Dunwich.

"I've been looking for it for about 35 years so it's very exciting."

Searching for years

Mr Bacon, working alongside a team from the University of Southampton, led by Professor David Sear, said the 13th Century church tumbled down the cliffs in about 1540.

"Over the years, I've had hundreds of divers accompany me to look for it.

"We knew roughly where it was but have never been able to uncover it until now," he said.

Mr Bacon said the team had been hindered by thick layers of silt, up to two metres deep, covering the debris.

"It's like doing a survey from the air when there has been a thick covering of snow - only the tallest structures stick out," he said.

"We've got a lot more work to do to analyse the data we've collected before we can say what else is down there."

Thriving city

Dunwich was founded by Felix, a bishop sent by the Pope to convert the pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes who had colonised Suffolk in the 7th Century.

It grew into a prosperous trading port and thriving city but was prone to the North Sea drift which eroded the cliffs.

By 1086, just 20 years after the Norman conquest, Dunwich was a thriving town of 3,000 people.

It had six parish churches with at least two other chapels.

It has now virtually disappeared and all that remains are a graveyard and a few old houses in the present village of Dunwich, which continues to be under threat from the sea.

Acoustic imaging identifies different densities of material on the sea bed and this helps experts to spot rocks which may be from buildings. This is how the ruins were first spotted and excavation has revealed the church.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7441759.stm

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Early Irrigation Farming In Ancient Yemen Traced

bobs — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 06:59:12 GMT

by Staff Writers
Toronto, Canada (SPX) Jul 21, 2008
In the remote desert highlands of southern Yemen, a team of archaeologists have discovered new evidence of ancient transitions from hunting and herding to irrigation agriculture 5,200 years ago.
As part of a larger program of archaeological research, Michael Harrower from the University of Toronto and The Roots of Agriculture in Southern Arabia (RASA) team explored the Wadi Sana watershed documenting 174 ancient irrigation structures, modeled topography and hydrology, and interviewed contemporary camel and goat herders and irrigation farmers.

"Agriculture in Yemen appeared relatively late in comparison with other areas of the Middle East, where farming first developed near the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago," says author Michael Harrower, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto.

"It's clear early farmers in Yemen faced unique environmental and social opportunities and challenges. Our findings show farming in southern Yemen required runoff diversion technologies that were adapted to harness monsoon (summer) runoff from the rugged terrain along with new understandings of social landscapes and rights to scarce water resources."

The researchers used computer Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping to determine that ancient forager-herders developed expert knowledge of hydrology and targeted particular small watersheds and landforms for irrigation.

Studies of contemporary land and water rights, including principles enshrined in Islamic law, suggest their origins lie at the very beginnings of water management as tribal principles of water equity intertwined with changing ideologies and culture.

These and other discoveries in southern Arabia have recently helped document the diversity of transitions from foraging to agriculture that in Yemen later gave rise to powerful ancient cities and states with advanced irrigation technologies that transformed deserts into lush, bountiful oases.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Archaeologists_Trace_Early_Irrigation_Farming_In_Ancient_Yemen_999.html

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Iron Age bodies at park-and-ride

bobs — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:10:15 GMT

A team of archaeologists in Leicestershire has uncovered several ancient bodies at the site of a new park-and-ride development.

Excavations are continuing in Enderby after what are thought to be four skeletons from the Iron Age - dating from before 43AD - were discovered.

The team from the University of Leicester said there were probably more bodies buried at the site.

A further four-week excavation in now under way.

'Elusive burials'

Peter Liddle, keeper of archaeology at Leicestershire County Council, said the find was exciting.

"This is a very nice addition to what we know about the Iron Age in Leicester," he said.

"We seem to have a track way that runs across the landscape and buried next to that track way are a series of bodies.

"It's nice as Iron Age roads and tracks are not that common. Iron Age burial is elusive - you don't see a lot of dead Iron Age people, you can't generally find them."

Archaeologists have also found some animal bones, domestic rubbish and some early Roman pottery.

The excavation is not expected to hold up the park-and-ride development as time for excavation has been built into the original schedule.

The Iron Age in Britain took place between about 750BC and about AD40.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/7499585.stm

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Ancient Peruvian tomb unearthed

bobs — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:36:47 GMT

Archaeologists have unearthed an ancient tomb in northern Peru that could throw light on the pre-Columbian Moche Indian culture.

The tomb in Ucupe, 670km (416 miles) from the capital Lima, contained well-preserved human remains along with jewellery and ceramics.

The finds suggested the tomb related to nobility, experts said.

The Moche Indians thrived from 100-800 AD and were famed for their ceramics, architecture and irrigation.

The northern coast has been a treasure trove for stunning archaeological discoveries for the last few decades, the BBC's Dan Collyns reports from Peru.

The dry desert climate of the region has helped to preserve these relics of the Moche civilisation.

Archaeologists said the tomb's body, found inside a wooden sarcophagus, was wearing a gold-coloured funeral mask and was surrounded by copper crowns, earrings, nose pieces and ear flaps

More remains, of a young man and animals such as llamas, were found nearby.

Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva, whose son Bruno was the dig co-director, told AP news agency: "Some elements like sceptres and crowns of gold are those that identify people of the highest hierarchical level."

Archaeologists believe the tomb may be linked to the other world-renowned Moche ruins in the area.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7491827.stm

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Italy declares Pompeii emergency

bobs — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:54:05 GMT

The ancient city of Pompeii has fallen into such disrepair that the Italian government has declared a "state of emergency" in a bid to save the ruins.

Ministers intend to appoint a special commissioner to oversee the site, and have earmarked extra funding for it.

According to analysts, the ruins have suffered from lack of investment, mismanagement, litter and looting.

Pompeii was buried by a volcanic eruption in AD79 and was not rediscovered until the 18th Century.

The volcanic debris preserved many of the city's buildings, frescos, silverware, mosaics and other artefacts.

But experts complain that the relics are now in danger.

"Every year at least 150 sq m (1,600 sq ft) of fresco and plasterwork are lost for lack of maintenance," Antonio Irlando, a regional councillor responsible for artistic heritage, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

"The same goes for stones: at least 3,000 pieces every year end up disintegrating," he said.

The ruins are one of Italy's biggest tourist attractions, and the newly-elected government has decided to act.
"To call the situation intolerable doesn't go far enough," Reuters quoted Culture Minister Sandro Bondi as saying.

The "state of emergency" will last for a year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7490735.stm

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Aztec 'Whistles of Death'

Frozenstars — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:48:29 GMT

Aztec 'Whistles of Death:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/06/30/pre-columbiansounds.ap/index.html

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Pumice As A Time Witness

bobs — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:03:10 GMT

ScienceDaily (June 27, 2008) — A chemist of Vienna University of Technology demonstrates how chemical fingerprints of volcanic eruptions and numerous pumice lump finds from archaeological excavations illustrate relations between individual advanced civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean. Thanks to his tests and to the provenancing of the respective pumice samples to partially far-reaching volcanic eruptions, it became possible to redefine a piece of cultural history from the second millenium B.C.

During the Bronze Age, between the years 3000 and 1000 B.C., the Mediterranean was already intensely populated. Each individual culture, whether it may be the Egyptian one, the Syrian one, or the Minoan culture from Santorini, has in most cases its own well-researched, chronological history. However, the connection between these individual cultures and locations is often missing for the most part because more often than not, there is no correspondence or similar exchange that has taken place, has been preserved, or is comprehensible. It is so much more difficult to synchronize the individual cultures among themselves.

An international research program of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) called “SCIEM2000” is now opening new perspectives in this field. A research team of the Atomic Institute of the Austrian Universities under the leadership of Professor Max Bichler is engaged in identifying volcanic rocks from archaeological excavations. Georg Steinhauser, Project Assistant and Chemist at the Department of Radiation Physical Analysis and Radiochemistry of the Atomic Institute says: “Pumice is a foamy volcanic rock. Today, we know the rock that is floating on water mainly as a cosmetic remedy for instance for sole callus.”

Pumice was also often used in ancient times as an abrasive and is repeatedly found in archaeological excavations in the Mediterranean Sea. Since volcanoes are not found everywhere, however, intense commercial activities related to this product were unleashed. “In Egypt, pumice was found in ancient workshops. In some of the excavations, there was even rock that still presented the right abrasion traces.

They were used to polish sculptures, constructions, bronze objects, and so forth. Chemical tests enable us to trace back from which volcanoes the samples came,” explains Georg Steinhauser.

Pumice in particular, just like the fine-grained volcano ashes, has a specific chemical composition, a characteristic “cocktail” on trace elements. Based on this, the researchers can generate a chemical fingerprint and can compare it to the data base the way it is done in criminology. Hence, pumices out of the Mediterranean volcanic centres as well as from archaeologically relevant pumice finds are being analysed. If the fingerprint of the find matches that of a rock type in the data base, then the origin can be undoubtedly determined.

So there is the immediate assumption that the Egyptians have surely ordered pumice from Greece. The researchers were able to determine these commercial relations by means of the instrumental neutron-activation analysis (INAA) by which the pumice samples in the research reactor are being irradiated with neutrons and subsequently measured with a gamma spectrometer.

This way, the chemical fingerprint is generated with 25 characteristic main and trace elements. “We were able to discover that pumice as a commodity (presumably seaborne) covered distances of up to 2,000 km in the Mediterranean Sea. The eruption of the volcanic island Santorini, about 1,600 B.C., represents a particular time indicator. It was so powerful, that the entire Minoan culture was obliterated. When we find today this layer of ashes respectively pumice in various archaeological excavations, this offers immediately a time marker and enables us to synchronize different cultures. This also enables us to determine which rulers were in power in different locations at a certain time,” states Steinhauser.

When a pumice lump from Santorini is found in an excavation, we can at least say that the Santorini volcano must have already erupted, and the time of the eruption corresponds consequently to the maximum age of the excavation discovery place.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adapted from materials provided by Vienna University of Technology.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080624124308.htm

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Maritime 'treasure trove' raised

bobs — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:35:37 GMT

By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News

A treasure trove of artefacts is being recovered from what experts describe as one of the most important maritime discoveries since the Mary Rose.

The late 16th Century shipwreck hails from a pivotal point in England's military history.

The raised haul includes a 2m-long (7ft) cannon, which will give archaeologists an insight into Elizabeth I's naval might.

The wreck, discovered 30 years ago, is situated off the coast of Alderney.

Dr Mensun Bound, excavation leader and marine archaeologist from Oxford University, said: "This boat is really grade A in terms of archaeology - it is hard to find anything that really compares with it."

The excavation of the Elizabethan warship is being filmed for the BBC's Timewatch series.

Recovering the cannon was a delicate operation; divers had to navigate through reef-strewn waters where strong currents prevailed.

Dr Bound said: "At first the weather was not too kind and we missed out on the window for the first attempt, but then the sea went down and the skies opened up, and everything was suddenly going our way.

"There were a few tense moments, but overall it went really well.

"The cannon is in perfect condition - nothing has broken - it has an intact hand grenade, part of its carriage system is in place, there is the barrel of a gun or a sword on one side.

"We cannot wait to get a closer look at it once it has been cleaned up.

"Archaeologically and historically, this is an important day."

The team hopes to raise another cannon in the coming days.

As well as the cannon, the team has also recovered many more objects, including a musket, a soldier's breastplate and an intact navigational calendar.

These join a large collection of artefacts - including another cannon - raised from another dive in the early 1990s.

Pivotal point

Experts believe the Alderney warship and its contents will help shed light on a key point of England's naval history. The boat is thought to have sunk in 1592, possibly after an encounter with one of the area's many reefs.

Just four years earlier, Elizabeth's navy had defeated the Spanish Armada and was embarking on expeditions that would exert its maritime and territorial domination around the world.

Dr Bound said: "The wreck illuminates a time when England was fighting for its very survival - the world was at war, the Catholic south was fighting the Protestant north."

At the same time, he added, the navy was undergoing a technological revolution.

He said: "Henry VIII's Mary Rose dates to 1545 and is an old-style ship. It had all sorts of guns, of different types, different shapes, different calibres, different ages, different styles."

But just 47 years later, the Alderney warship looked very different - and by looking at artefacts such as the raised cannons the team hopes to discover just how advanced the navy really was.

"We hope they will demonstrate that this ship was carrying our first uniform, co-ordinated weapons system," Dr Bound explained.

"We think that here we have a standardised weapons system here; the guns are all the same type, the same materials, the same technology, the same calibre.

"It is a different type of navy, its a more professional navy. We have here the beginnings of broadside naval warfare."

The cannons and other arms, such as muskets and guns, will now be brought up the Thames to the Tower of London. There they will be examined and then flown to York for conservation.

The BBC Timewatch team will then follow the archaeologists as they rebuild and test the weapons, putting them through detailed ballistic tests to determine their precision and power.

Text and video reports on the Alderney wreck are published at the BBC Timewatch website. A BBC Two documentary will be broadcast in later in the year and will detail the findings of the investigation

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7446423.stm

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Jordan cave may be oldest church

bobs — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:31:01 GMT

By Matt McGrath
BBC science correspondent

Archaeologists in Rihab, Jordan, say they have discovered a cave that could be the world's oldest Christian church.

Dating to the period AD33-70, the underground chapel would have served as both a place of worship and a home.

It is claimed that it was originally used by a group of 70 persecuted Christians who fled from Jerusalem.

These early Christians lived and practised their faith in secrecy until the Romans embraced Christianity several hundred years later.

'Beautiful things'

Rihab is in Northern Jordan. The cave is beneath the ancient church of St Georgeous, itself one of the oldest known places of worship in the world.

According to Dr Abdul Qader Al-Hassan, the director of the Rihab Centre for Archaeological studies, the cave site shows clear evidence of early Christian rituals that predate the church.

Dr Al-Hassan says that steps lead down into the chapel which is approximately 12m long and seven metres wide.

There is a circular area of worship with stone seats separated from living quarters. This circular element, called an apse, is important says Dr Al-Hassan because there is only one other example of a cave with a similar feature, which was also used for Christian worship.

Dr Al-Hassan said: "We found beautiful things. I found the cemetery of this church; we found pottery shards and lamps with the inscription 'Georgeous'".

In the cave there is also a tunnel that leads to a cistern which supplied water to the dwellers. An inscription in the floor of the church above refers to the "70 beloved by God and the divine" whom the archaeologist believes were refugees from religious persecution in Jerusalem.

Dr Al-Hassan says that excavation of the tunnel and the cistern may yield yet more evidence about the lives of these early Christians.

"From the tunnel to the cistern is very important. We want to clean it and make an excavation inside it. We found a very old inscription beside it and coins also, and crosses made from iron."

Other experts say they are cautious about the claim. They want to examine the artefacts and see clear dating evidence. The earliest confirmed examples of churches date from the third century, they say.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7446812.stm

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Egyptian Pharoah's 'Missing' Pyramid Found

bobs — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:40:49 GMT

Katarina Kratovac, Associated Press

June 5, 2008 -- Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the "missing pyramid" of a pharaoh and a ceremonial procession road where high priests carried mummified remains of sacred bulls, Egypt's antiquities chief said Thursday.

Zahi Hawass said the pyramid -- of which only the base remains -- is believed to be that of King Menkauhor, an obscure pharaoh who ruled for only eight years more than 4,000 years ago.

In 1842, German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius mentioned Menkauhor's pyramid among his finds at Saqqara, calling it the "Headless Pyramid" because its top was missing, Hawass said.

But the desert sands covered Lepsius' discovery, and no archaeologist since was able to find it.

"We have filled the gap of the missing pyramid," Hawass told reporters on a tour of the discoveries at Saqqara, the necropolis and burial site of the rulers of ancient Memphis, the capital of Egypt's Old Kingdom, south of Cairo.

Only the pyramid's base -- or the superstructure as archaeologists call it -- was found after a 25-foot-high mound of sand was removed over the past year and a half by Hawass' team.

The base was in a 15 foot-deep pit dug out by workers, with heaps of huge rocks marking its entrance and walls. A burial chamber also was discovered.

Hawass said the style of the pyramid and of a gray granite sarcophagus lid found in the burial chamber indicates the pyramid was from the Fifth Dynasty, a period that began in 2,465 B.C. and ended in 2,325 B.C.

The period spanned approximately 140 years of the Old Kingdom. That would put it about two centuries after the completion of the Great Pyramid of Giza, believed to have been finished in 2,500 B.C.

Archaeologists have not found a cartouche -- a pharoah's name in hieroglyphs -- of the pyramid's owner. But Hawass said that, based on the estimated dating of the pyramid, he was convinced it belonged to Menkauhor.

The second discovery Hawass announced Thursday was a part of a ceremonial procession road, dating back to the Ptolemaic period, which ran for about 300 years before 30 B.C.

It runs alongside Menkauhor's pyramid, leading from a mummification chamber toward the Saqqara Serapium, a network of underground tombs where sacred bulls were interred, discovered by French archaeologist August Mariette in 1850.

A high priest would carry the mummified bulls' remains down the road -- the only human allegedly allowed to walk on it -- to the chambers where the bulls would be placed in sarcophagi in the Serapium, about a third of a mile away, he said.

Ancient Egyptians considered Apis Bulls to be earthy incarnations of the city god of Memphis and connected with fertility and the sun-cult.

A bull would be chosen for its deep black coloring and would be required to have a single white mark between the horns. Selected by priests and honored until death, it was mummified and buried in the Serapium's underground galleries.

The sprawling archaeological site at Saqqara is most famous for the Step Pyramid of King Djoser -- the oldest of Egypt's over 100 pyramids, built in the 27th century B.C.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/06/05/pyramid-egypt.html

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The Space Archaeologists

Jahvan — Sun, 25 May 2008 05:31:07 GMT

What does the past look like from 200 miles up? A new generation of archaeologists has found that the history of civilization may look far clearer from the top of the atmosphere than it does from the bottom of a dig...
Chech it out @ http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-05/space-archaeologists

posted in Archaeology - 7 replies

Remember Silbury Hill Excavation?

Jahvan — Sat, 31 May 2008 17:25:00 GMT

Not much in the news about the re-opening of the sacred mound...e'xcpt this-
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2279497,00.html
Wha? Final Secret my arse!

posted in Archaeology - 1 reply

Archaeologist Uses Satellite Imagery To Explore Ancient Mexico

bobs — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:32:37 GMT

ScienceDaily (May 14, 2008) — Satellite imagery obtained from NASA will help archeologist Bill Middleton peer into the ancient Mexican past. In a novel archeological application, multi- and hyperspectral data will help build the most accurate and most detailed landscape map that exists of the southern state of Oaxaca, where the Zapotec people formed the first state-level and urban society in Mexico.

“If you ask someone off the street about Mexican archeology, they’ll say Aztec, Maya. Sometimes they’ll also say Inca, which is the wrong continent, but you’ll almost never hear anyone talk about the Zapotecs,” says Middleton, acting chair of the Department of Material Culture Sciences and professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Rochester Institute of Technology. “They had the first writing system, the first state society, the first cities. And they controlled a fairly large territory at their Zenith—250 B.C. to 750 A.D.”

The process of state formation varied across the Zapotec realm. Sometimes it involved conquest, and other times it was more economically driven. Archeologists like Middleton are interested in different aspects of society that emerged in the process, such as social stratification and the development and intensification of agriculture and economic specialization.

Middleton’s study will explore how the Oaxacan economy and environment changed as the Zapotec state grew and then collapsed into smaller city-states. Funding from NASA and National Geographic will also help Middleton build a picture of how climate and vegetation patterns have changed over time.

“For the past 4,000 years, human activities have been a factor in environmental change,” Middleton says. “And there are some parts of Mesoamerica that we have pretty good evidence that the environment we see today is the catastrophic result of ancient agricultural practices.” Middleton will focus on two sites in the Chichicapam Valley located in between two of the major arms of the central valleys of Zapotec. The National Geographic-funded portion of the study began last summer when he documented important archeological sites and selected candidates for excavation.

Imagery from Earth Observing 1 and Landsat satellites obtained over three years will help Middleton identify the natural resources found at archeological sites. He will work with colleagues John Kerekes and David Messinger along with graduate student Justin Kwon in RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science to analyze the large amounts of data taken at different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. Their own research uses similar techniques to analyze urban landscapes, and inspired Middleton to apply the technology to archeological landscapes.

“We are excited to be collaborating with Bill in this application of remote sensing technology to archaeological study,” says Kerekes. “This project shows a true strength of RIT with an environment that allows physical scientists and engineers like us to easily work together with a social scientist like Bill.”

Adds Messinger: “Applications of remote sensing have long been a motivating factor for our technology work in the field of remote sensing, and the chance to work closely with an end-user here at RIT is a fantastic opportunity for our students and faculty. By learning more about how the technology can help in this application, we will be in a much better position to guide our future sensor development and algorithmic research.”

The technology works by differentiating materials on the ground on the basis of reflected light. Objects that look the same in visible light may have very different reflective properties when sampled across the spectrum.

“When you put the data back together as a picture you begin to see things you couldn’t see before, and you can make distinctions that to your eyes look the same,” Middleton says.

Satellite imagery covering more than 30,000 square kilometers will help Middleton identify different plant species, environments and ecosystems, and acres of arable land or mineral resources surrounding particular sites.

“We can start looking at the relationship between ancient cities and ancient human settlements in a way that no one has really been able to do before,” Middleton says.

The new landscape map will also show how development has changed the region since the first survey conducted 30 years ago.

“We will be able to compare the then-and-now images and be able to make a very good assessment of what we have lost in the past several decades as a result of development,” Middleton says.

Another aspect of the NASA-funded project will focus on environmental change. This part of the study, done in conjunction with colleagues at the University of Colorado at Boulder will analyze plant microfossils in sediment samples collected from a variety of locations, including areas where streams expose sediment layers 10,000 years old.

“Roughly 10,000 years ago, Oaxaca was wetter than it is today,” Middleton says. “Today it’s classified as semi-arid, and the dominant vegetation in the valley is thorn-scrub forest. Ten thousand years ago, it was a grassland and there were horses there.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080513112348.htm

posted in Archaeology - 0 replies

Maya Queen's Tomb Yields "Amazing" Fabrics- New & Unprecedented!

Jahvan — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:51:00 GMT

Ancient Maya Tomb Yields "Amazing" Fabrics
Ker Than
for National Geographic News
April 25, 2008
From;
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080425-maya-fabric.html

Fabric fragments excavated from the tomb of an ancient Maya queen rival modern textiles in their complexity and quality, scientists say.

The tomb was discovered in the Maya city of Copán in Honduras by a team led by archaeologist Robert Sharer of the University of Pennsylvania.
Researchers believe the queen, whose name is not known, was buried in the fifth century A.D.

Some of the fabrics found within her tomb have thread counts of over 80 weft yarns per inch, said Margaret Ordonez, a textile expert at the University of Rhode Island who studied the cloth.

"This is in the range of the clothing that we wear," she said. "This is a higher thread count than your jeans."

Some of the fragments contained as many as 25 layers of fabric, stacked atop one another and fused together over time.

"What's surprising is the fragments still exist," Ordonez said.

"We're talking about a humid climate, and to have fragments of fabric exist in the tomb for that long is just amazing."

Archaeologists suspect that the tomb was opened after the queen's death to allow worshipers to perform rituals and make offerings of fabric and other items.

"It was fairly common that there was a ritual conducted, especially for royalty," Sharer, the archaeologist, said.

How Did the Maya Weave?

The fabrics were made of various plant materials, including cotton, grasses, leaves, and tree bark.

Continued on Next Page >>

posted in Archaeology - 2 replies

Egypt's Pyramids Packed With Seashells

bobs — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:25:10 GMT

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

April 25, 2008 -- Many of Egypt's most famous monuments, such as the Sphinx and Cheops, contain hundreds of thousands of marine fossils, most of which are fully intact and preserved in the walls of the structures, according to a new study.

The study's authors suggest that the stones that make up the examined monuments at Giza plateau, Fayum and Abydos must have been carved out of natural stone since they reveal what chunks of the sea floor must have looked like over 4,000 years ago, when the buildings were erected.

"The observed random emplacement and strictly homogenous distribution of the fossil shells within the whole rock is in harmony with their initial in situ setting in a fluidal sea bottom environment," wrote Ioannis Liritzis and his colleagues from the University of the Aegean and the University of Athens.

The researchers analyzed the mineralogy, as well as the chemical makeup and structure, of small material samples chiseled from the Sphinx Temple, the Osirion Shaft, the Valley Temple, Cheops, Khefren, Osirion at Abydos, the Temple of Seti I at Abydos and Qasr el-Sagha at Fayum.

X-ray diffraction and radioactivity measurements, which can penetrate solid materials to help illuminate their composition, were carried out on the samples.

The analysis determined the primary building materials were "pinky" granites, black and white granites, sandstones and various types of limestones. The latter was found to contain "numerous shell fossils of nummulites gen." At Cheops alone, "(they constituted) a proportion of up to 40 percent of the whole building stone rock."

The findings have been accepted for publication in the Journal of Cultural Heritage.

Nummulites, meaning "little coins," are simple marine organisms. Shells of those that lived during the Eocene period around 55.8 to 33.9 million years ago are most commonly found in Egyptian limestone. Fossils for the organisms have also been unearthed at other sites, such as in Turkey and throughout the Mediterranean.

When horizontally bisected, a nummulite appears as a perfect spiral. Since they were common in ancient Egypt, it's believed the shells were actually used as coins, perhaps explaining their name.

Fossils for ancient relatives to sand dollars, starfish and sea urchins were also detected in the Egyptian limestone.

Liritzis and his team argue that since the fossils are largely undamaged and are distributed in a random manner within the stone, in accordance with their typical distribution at sea floors, the large building stones used to construct the monuments must have been carved out of natural stone instead of cast in molds.

To further their argument, the scientists say the X-ray patterns detected no presence of lime, which would be expected along with natron, a salt found in early cast materials. They also point out that no references about molds, buckets or other casting tools exist in early Egyptian paintings, sculptures or texts.

Joseph Davidovits, professor and director of France's Geopolymer Institute, formulated the theory that natural limestone was cast like concrete to build the pyramids of Egypt.

Davidovits told Discovery News that Liritzis and his team "should have taken into account the scientific analysis" conducted by himself and other researchers before backing the carved-not-cast theory.

Robert Temple, co-director of the Project for Historical Dating and a visiting research fellow at universities in America, Egypt and Greece, has also studied Egypt's monuments. He agrees with Davidovits about the casting.

"There is no evidence known that suggests the ancient Egyptians had cranes," he said. "Without cranes, it is difficult to imagine how they could have lifted giant stones, some as heavy as 200 tons."

Temple, however, agrees, "Egyptian pyramid blocks of limestone tend to contain fossil shells and nummulites, often huge quantities of them, many of them intact, and many of them of surprisingly large size."

He added, "Frankly, not many people pay attention to the shells, which I have always thought was a shame. 'Seashells in the Desert'-- a good story."

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/04/25/pyramids-fossils-egypt.html

posted in Archaeology - 1 reply

Plague killed Roman grave bodies

bobs — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:47:25 GMT

A study into a mass Roman grave excavated in Gloucester appears to show the people were victims of a plague.

The remains of around 91 individuals, uncovered in 2005, are part of Wooton cemetery which was the burial ground for the fortress at nearby Kingsholm.

The bodies appear to have been thrown in haphazardly during the second half of the 2nd Century.

Oxford Archaeologists who analysed the remains say they are the victims of an epidemic, perhaps the Antonine Plague.

This outbreak of smallpox swept across the Roman Empire between AD 165 and 189.

"The skeletons of adult males, females, and children were lying in a very haphazard fashion, their bones completely entangled, reflecting the fact that they had been dumped, unceremoniously in a hurried manner," said Louise Loe, Head of Burial Archaeology.

Inscribed tombstones

"When we studied the skeletons we were looking for evidence, such as trauma, that would explain why they had been buried in such a way.

"In fact, very little trauma was found on the skeletons.....this led us to conclude that the individuals were the victims of an epidemic that did not discriminate against age or sex," she said.

"Plague kills quickly and tends not to leave marks on bone. Therefore it is not surprising that evidence for disease was not found on the skeletons."

Future DNA tests will be carried out on the skeletons in the hope of confirming this.

Also unearthed on the site on London Road were two first century sculptured and inscribed tombstones which helped the team make a direct connection between documentary evidence and the archaeological record of the site.

One tombstone was for a 14-year-old slave, the other for Lucius Octavius Martialis, son of Lucius, of the Pollian voting tribe from Eporedia, soldier of the Twentieth Legion.

The legion was stationed at Gloucester until the late 1st Century with soldiers from Sporedia, modern Ivrea north of Turin.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/7374836.stm

posted in Archaeology - 0 replies

BBCNEWS: Human line 'nearly split in two'

Frozenstars — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:20:46 GMT

Human line 'nearly split in two'

By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News

Ancient humans started down the path of evolving into two separate species before merging back into a single population, a genetic study suggests.

The genetic split in Africa resulted in distinct populations that lived in isolation for as much as 100,000 years, the scientists say.

This could have been caused by arid conditions driving a wedge between humans in eastern and southern Africa.

Details have been published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

It would be the longest period for which modern human populations have been isolated from one another.

But other scientists said it was still too early to reconstruct a meaningful picture of humankind's early history in Africa. They argue that other scenarios could also account for the data.

At the time of the split - some 150,000 years ago - our species, Homo sapiens , was still confined to the African continent.

We don't know how long it takes for hominids to fission off into separate species, but clearly they were separated for a very long time
Dr Spencer Wells, Genographic Project

The results have come from the Genographic Project, a major effort to track human migrations through DNA.

The latest conclusions are based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA in present-day African populations. This type of DNA is the genetic material stored in mitochondria - the "powerhouses" of cells.

It is passed down from a mother to her offspring, providing a unique record of maternal inheritance.

"We don't know how long it takes for hominids to fission off into separate species, but clearly they were separated for a very long time," said Dr Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project.

"They came back together again during the Late Stone Age - driven by population expansion."

Family tree

Although present-day people carry a signature of the ancient split in their DNA, today's Africans are part of a single population.

The researchers compiled a "family tree" of different mitochondrial DNA groupings found in Africa.

A major split occurred near the root of the tree as early as 150,000 years ago.

On one side of this divide are the mitochondrial lineages now found predominantly in East and West Africa, and all maternal lineages found outside Africa.

On the other side of the divide are lineages predominantly found in the Khoi and San (Khoisan) hunter-gatherer people of southern Africa.

Many African populations today harbour a mixture of both.

Although there is very deep divergence in the mitochondrial lineages, that can be different from inferring when the populations diverged from one another
Dr Sarah Tishkoff, University of Pennsylvania

The scientists say the most likely scenario is that two populations went their separate ways early in our evolutionary history.

This gave rise to separate human communities localised to eastern and southern Africa that evolved in isolation for between 50,000 and 100,000 years.

This divergence could have been related to climate change: recent studies of ancient climate data suggest that eastern Africa went through a series of massive droughts between 135,000-90,000 years ago.

Lead author Doron Behar, from the Rambam Medical Center in Israel commented: "It is possible the harsh environment and changing climate made populations migrate to other places in order to have a better chance of survival.

"Some of them found places where they could and - perhaps - some didn't. More than that we cannot say."

Back together

Dr Wells told BBC News: "Once this population reached southern Africa, it was cut off from the eastern African population by these drought events which were on the route between them."

Modern humans are often presumed to have originated in East Africa and then spread out to populate other areas. But the data could equally support an origin in southern Africa followed by a migration to East and West Africa.

The genetic data show that populations came back together as a single, pan-African population about 40,000 years ago.

This renewed contact appears to coincide with the development of more advanced stone tool technology and may have been helped by more favourable environmental conditions.

"[The mixing] was two-way to a certain extent, but the majority of mitochondrial lineages seem to have come from north-eastern Africa down to the south," said Spencer Wells.

But other scientists said different scenarios could explain the data.

Dr Sarah Tishkoff, an expert on African population genetics from the University of Pennsylvania, said the Khoisan might once have carried many more of the presumed "East African" lineages but that these could have been lost over time.

"Although there is very deep divergence in the mitochondrial lineages, that can be different from inferring when the populations diverged from one another and there can be many demographic scenarios to account for it," she told BBC News.

She added: "As a general rule of thumb, when mitochondrial genetic lineages split, it will usually precede the population split. It can often be difficult to infer from one to the other."

The University of Pennsylvania researcher stressed it was not possible to pinpoint where in Africa the populations had once lived - complicating the process of reconstructing scenarios from genetic data.

The Genographic Project's findings are also consistent with the idea - held for some years now - that modern humans had a close brush with extinction in the evolutionary past.

The number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the Late Stone Age.

Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7358868.stm

Published: 2008/04/24 17:32:42 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

posted in Archaeology - 0 replies

China's Terracotta Army Covered in Egg

bobs — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:16:16 GMT

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

April 18, 2008 -- China's terracotta army, a collection of 7,000 soldier and horse figures in the mausoleum of the country's first emperor, was entirely covered with beaten egg when it was constructed, according to German and Italian chemists who have analyzed samples from several of the figurines.

According to the research team, the egg served as a binder for colorful paints, which went over a layer of lacquer.

Co-author Catharina Blaensdorf, a scientist at the Technical University of Munich in Germay, explained to Discovery News that "egg paint is normally very stable, and not soluble in water...This makes [it] less sensitive to humidity and moisture."

Egg proteins would have also ensured the adhesion of the paint to the lacquer, while also giving the paint thickness and texture, added Blaensdorf's colleague Ilaria Bonaduce, of the University of Pisa in Italy.

For the study, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Cultural Heritage, the researchers took samples from warrior figurine faces, kneeling archers, swans and paint fragments found on the ground inside the 210 B.C. mausoleum. They chemically separated the flakes to isolate the ingredients, and then inserted them into a machine that determined their composition.

The researchers thought animal glue might have served as a binder, but all of the data pointed to egg instead. The pigments, they found, were bone white, lead white, cerussite (which sparkles), quartz, cinnabar, malachite, charcoal black, copper salts, Chinese purple and azurite.

Bright hues were important "because color was precious and a colorful army was the best, and an emperor could demand the best," said Blaensdorf.

The sturdy terracotta and thick, eggy paint add to the conclusion that the army was also built to last.

The mausoleum was even booby-trapped, "Home Alone"-style, with rigged crossbows to stop would-be thieves.

Eighty master potters left their signatures on the terracotta figures. These names show some individuals came from the imperial court, while other artists appear to have been respected local craftsmen. Some official names overlap with those found on sewage pipes and floor tiles found in other locations, "so it seems there was an office for making pottery (within) the imperial court," said Blaensdorf.

Erika Ribechini, a scientist in the Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry at the University of Pisa, who did not work on the project, said the new findings "are very well presented."

"Even though the terracotta army is very famous," she said, not much is known about it. Ribechini also said the egg discovery "is particularly fascinating in terms of its historical significance, because roughly in the same period, in the Roman Empire and in ancient Greece, the artists used to utilize egg as a binder in creating mural and stone paintings."

The research is likely to help art restorers to repair and preserve the terracotta army.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/04/18/terracotta-army-egg.html

posted in Archaeology - 4 replies

Skull returns to final rest place

bobs — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:10:03 GMT

A rare 2,000-year-old Roman skull has been returned to the cave beneath the Yorkshire Dales where it was discovered by divers in 1996.

Archaeologists were called in after cave divers unearthed human bones in what is believed to be one of the most important cave discoveries ever made.

The skull dates to the 2nd Century and is that of a local woman in her 50s.

It was stored at Sheffield University for carbon-dating and recently returned to the cave, which has now been sealed.

There are other human remains in the cave which date back to the Bronze Age - more than 1,000 years before Roman Britain. Animal remains, including horses and dogs, have also been excavated.

Cave burials from this period are rare so this site is considered an archaeological treasure trove.

Experts believe the cave could have been a tomb, but that some of the deaths may have been through sacrificial ceremonies.

Tom Lord, research fellow at Lancaster University, has studied ancient bones in caves for more than 20 years and believes there is more to be unearthed in the cave.

Mr Lord calls the cave an "ancient time capsule" because of the many different remains inside. He believes the cave was considered a sacred place for centuries because of its supposed entrance to the underworld.

He also referred to the cave as an "ancient crime scene" because it may have been the scene of forced sacrifices.

Ancient bodies have also been discovered in what are thought to be sacrificial caves in East Yorkshire.

The skulls excavated from East Yorkshire show the bodies suffered blows to the head, and were therefore sacrificed by force.

Unfortunately the recently-returned skull is only a partial skull and there are not enough remains to determine how the Roman woman died.

One theory is that she may have been a high-born figure from the local area who voluntarily sacrificed herself, believing she would enter the underworld.

Other factors could, however, point to the woman wanting to escape Roman hardship.

The skull has been laid to rest under a shelf in the cave where it is hoped it will remain undisturbed.

Mr Lord said that if archaeologists chose to reinvestigate the cave in the future, much more could be unravelled.

For now though, the cave has been shut, disguised with earth and rock and sealed completely.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/7341110.stm

posted in Archaeology - 0 replies

Swedes find Viking-era Arab coins

bobs — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:55:27 GMT

Swedish archaeologists have discovered a rare hoard of Viking-age silver Arab coins near Stockholm's Arlanda airport.

About 470 coins were found on 1 April at an early Iron Age burial site. They date from the 7th to 9th Century, when Viking traders travelled widely.

There has been no similar find in that part of Sweden since the 1880s.

Most of the coins were minted in Baghdad and Damascus, but some came from Persia and North Africa, said archaeologist Karin Beckman-Thoor.

The team from the Swedish National Heritage Board had just started removing a stone cairn at the site "when we suddenly found one coin and couldn't understand why it was there", she told the BBC News website.

"We continued digging and found more coins and realised it was a Viking-age hoard." The coins were left there in about AD850, she said.

Such Viking hoards usually come from Gotland - a large Swedish island in the Baltic Sea, she explained.

"No Viking was buried at this site - the grave is older. Maybe the Vikings thought the hoard would be protected by ancestors," Ms Beckman-Thoor added. Vikings had settled in a village nearby.

The Vikings travelled widely in their longships in the Baltic region and Russia from the late 8th to the 11th Century. They are known to have travelled as far as North Africa and Constantinople (now Istanbul).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7330540.stm

posted in Archaeology - 1 reply

Necklace is 'oldest in Americas'

bobs — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:14:34 GMT

By Helen Briggs
Science reporter, BBC News

A necklace found near Lake Titicaca in southern Peru is the oldest known gold object made in the Americas, archaeologists say.

Radiocarbon dating puts its origin at about 4,000 years ago, when hunter-gatherers occupied the area.

The researchers say it appears to have been fashioned from gold nuggets.

The discovery suggests that the use of gold jewellery to signify status began before the appearance of more complex societies in the Andes, they report.

Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), they say the artefact is the earliest worked gold found not only in the Andes, but the Americas as well.

Study leader Dr Mark Aldenderfer of the department of anthropology at the University of Arizona, Tucson, said it demonstrated an emerging social role for gold beyond simple decoration.

He told BBC News: "The gold reflects a universal tendency for human beings to strive for prestige and status.

"The gold reflects that process in people living in a simple society which is in the process of becoming more complex."

Status symbol

The necklace was found alongside the jawbone of an adult skull in a burial pit next to primitive pithouses at Jiskairumoko, a hamlet that was settled from 3,300 to 1,500 BC.

The researchers believe it had been worn by an adult, probably an elderly woman.

Marks on the necklace suggest that gold nuggets had been flattened with a stone hammer and then carefully bent or hammered around a hard cylindrical object to create a tubular shape.

The gold would have signalled the prestige of its wearer, "not at all different to today," said Dr Aldenderfer.

"This reflects a lot more than just a lovely object," he added. "This is a major piece of how people lived their lives and how they competed for status in the past."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7323351.stm

posted in Archaeology - 0 replies

Excavation starts at Stonehenge

bobs — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:33:31 GMT

The first excavation inside the ring at Stonehenge in more than four decades gets under way on Monday.

The two-week dig will try to establish, once and for all, some precise dating for the creation of the monument.

It is also targeting the significance of the smaller bluestones that stand inside the giant sarsen pillars.

Researchers believe these rocks, brought all the way from Wales, hold the secret to the real purpose of Stonehenge as a place of healing.

The excavation at the 4,500-year-old UK landmark is being funded by the BBC. The work will be filmed for a special Timewatch programme to be broadcast in the autumn.

'Magical stones'

The researchers leading the project are two of the UK's leading Stonehenge experts - Professor Tim Darvill, of the University of Bournemouth, and Professor Geoff Wainwright, of the Society of Antiquaries.

They are convinced that the dominating feature on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire was akin to a "Neolithic Lourdes" - a place where people went on a pilgrimage to get cured.

Some of the evidence supporting this theory comes from the dead, they say.

A significant proportion of the newly discovered Neolithic remains show clear signs of skeletal trauma. Some had undergone operations to the skull, or had walked with a limp, or had broken bones.

Modern techniques have established that many of these people had clearly travelled huge distances to get to south-west England, suggesting they were seeking supernatural help for their ills.

But Darvill and Wainwright have also traced the bluestones - the stones in the centre of Stonehenge - to the exact spot they came from in the Preseli hills, 250km away in the far west of Wales.

Neolithic inscriptions found at this location indicate the ancient people there believed the stones to be magical and for the local waters to have healing properties.

'Scientific proof'

Darvill and Wainwright hope the dig will demonstrate such beliefs also lay behind the creation of Stonehenge, by showing that the make-up of the original floor of the sacred circle at the monument is dominated by bluestone chippings that were purposely placed there.

The dig will also provide a more precise dating of the Double Bluestone Circle, the first stone circle that was erected at Stonehenge.

The original setting for this circle is no longer visible. The bluestones seen by visitors today are later re-erections.

Archaeologists tried to date the first circle in the 1990s and estimated that it was put up at around 2,550BC; but a more precise dating has not been possible.

Principally, this is because materials removed in earlier excavations were poorly recorded and cannot be attributed with any certainty to specific features and deposits.

The 3.5m by 2.5m trench that will be excavated in the new effort will aim to retrieve fragments of the original bluestone pillars that can be properly dated.

Genuine chance

The BBC-funded excavation goes ahead with the full support of English Heritage, which manages the site for the nation.

"Theories about Stonehenge are cheap; proof is precious," commented BBC Timewatch editor, John Farren.

"I'm delighted that Timewatch, the BBC's flagship history programme, is able to offer the possibility for some hard scientific proof to further our knowledge of the dating of Stonehenge and to bolster this remarkable new theory.

"It's taken us 18 months' hard work to get all the elements for the dig in place."

Professor Wainwright added: "This small excavation of a bluestone is the culmination of six years of research which Tim and I have conducted in the Preseli Hills of North Pembrokeshire and which has shed new light on the eternal question as to why Stonehenge was built.

"The excavation will date the arrival of the bluestones following their 250km journey from Preseli to Salisbury Plain and contribute to our definition of the society which undertook such an ambitious project. We will be able to say not only why but when the first stone monument was built."

Dr Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage, commented: "Very occasionally, we have the opportunity to find out something new archeologically - we are at that moment now.

"We believe that this dig has a chance of genuinely unlocking part of the mystery of Stonehenge."

(BBC Timewatch will follow the progress of the Stonehenge dig over the course of the next two weeks. Catch daily text and video reports on the programme's website. ( A http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/stonehenge/ )BBC Two documentary will be broadcast in the autumn and will detail the findings of the investigation )

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7322134.stm

posted in Archaeology - 1 reply

Ancient Seahenge 'returns home'

bobs — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:49:09 GMT

A timber circle dating back 4,000 years which was found in the sea off the Norfolk coast is to return to the county in a permanent display.
Seahenge, with 55 oak posts and a central upturned stump dating from the Bronze Age, was found emerging from a beach at Holme-next-the-Sea in 1998.

Timbers were studied at the Bronze Age Centre, Peterborough, then preserved at the Mary Rose Trust, Portsmouth.

Next month Seahenge will go on display at the Lynn Museum in King's Lynn.

After Seahenge was excavated, 3D laser scanning revealed the earliest metal tool marks on wood ever discovered in Britain.

'Remains mysterious'

Archaeologists at the Bronze Age Centre, believe between 50 and 80 people may have helped build the circle, possibly to mark the death of an important individual.

Seahenge became exposed at low tides after the peat dune covering it was swept away by winter storms.

The site's excavation was initially halted by protests by a group of about 12 Druids and environmental campaigners who said the sea had cared for the site for 4,000 years and would continue to do so.

But researchers said the exposed wood was deteriorating fast.

Funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and Norfolk County Council has been provided for the Seahenge Gallery project at the Lynn Museum which will house the timber, displayed in its original formation.

The central stump, which is still being treated, will join the gallery at a later date.

John Gretton, of Norfolk County Council, said: "The discovery of Seahenge in the summer of 1998 captured the imagination of the public and archaeologists alike.

"Whilst the research done on the timbers has led to some historians drawing conclusions, the original function of Seahenge remains mysterious, and I hope that visitors will flock to the newly restored Lynn Museum to speculate on the ancient meaning behind the timbers - which we were able to rescue for all time from further damage."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7312429.stm

posted in Archaeology - 1 reply

Spain dig yields ancient European

bobs — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:12:04 GMT

By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News

Scientists have discovered the oldest human remains in western Europe.

A jawbone and teeth discovered at the famous Atapuerca site in northern Spain have been dated between 1.1 and 1.2 million years old.

The finds provide further evidence for the great antiquity of human occupation on the continent, the researchers write in the journal Nature.

Scientists also found stone tools and animal bones with tell-tale cut marks from butchering by humans.

The discovery comprises part of a human's lower jawbone. The remains of seven teeth were found still in place; an isolated tooth, belonging to the same individual, was also unearthed.

Its small size suggests it could have belonged to a female.

The find was made in the Sierra de Atapuerca, a region of gently rolling hills near the Spanish city of Burgos which contain a complex of ancient limestone caves.

These caves have yielded abundant, well-preserved evidence of ancient occupation by humans and have been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site.

The new remains were unearthed at the archaeological site of Sima del Elefante, which lies just a few hundred metres from two other locations which have yielded remains of early Europeans.

"It is the oldest human fossil yet found in Western Europe," said co-author Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, director of Spain's National Research Centre on Human Evolution (CENIEH) in Burgos.

Ancient migration

Dr Bermudez de Castro told BBC News that the latest find had anatomical features linking it to earlier hominins (modern humans, their ancestors and relatives since divergence from apes) discovered in Dmanisi, Georgia - at the gates of Europe.

The Georgian hominins lived some 1.7 million years ago and represent an early expansion of humans outside Africa.

The researchers therefore suggest that Western Europe was settled by a population of hominins coming from the east.

Once these early people had "won the West" they evolved into a distinct species - Homo antecessor, or "Pioneer Man", say the scientists.

The scientists now plan to investigate whether Pioneer Man might have been ancestral to Neanderthals and to even our own species Homo sapiens.

Chris Stringer, head of human origins at London's Natural History Museum, said that until more material was discovered from Atapuerca, he was cautious about assigning the new specimen to the species Homo antecessor.

But he added: "However the specimen is classified, when combined with the emerging archaeological evidence, it suggests that southern Europe began to be colonised from western Asia not long after humans had emerged from Africa - something which many of us would have doubted even five years ago."

The Spanish researchers used three different techniques to date the new fossils: palaeomagnetism, cosmogenic nuclide dating and biostratigraphy.

Dr Bermudez de Castro said they represented the most accurately dated evidence of human occupation in Europe.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7313005.stm

posted in Archaeology - 0 replies

Tower of London's royal lions 'from Africa'

bobs — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:08:10 GMT

Tower of London's Barbary lions
Two lion skulls found during excavations at the Tower of London originated in north-west Africa, genetic research suggests.
The big cats, which were kept by royals during medieval times, have the same genetic make-up as the north African Barbary lion, a DNA study shows.

Experts believe the animals were gifts to English monarchs in the 13th and 14th centuries.

At the time, the Barbary lion roamed across much of Africa.

The two well-preserved lion skulls were recovered during excavations of the moat at the Tower of London in 1937. They have been radiocarbon dated to AD 1280-1385 and AD 1420-1480.

Researchers at the University of Oxford extracted DNA from the skulls, and found that it matched that of the north African Barbary lion.

Comparison with the skulls of Asiatic and north African Barbary lions kept in museums in the UK and Europe gave further evidence of the link.

Dr Richard Sabin, Curator of Mammals at London's Natural History Museum, said the results were the first genetic evidence to clearly confirm that lions found during excavations at the Tower of London originated in north Africa.

He said: "Although we have one of the best mammal collections in the world here at the Natural History Museum, few physical remains survive of the Royal Menagerie.

"Direct animal trade between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa was not developed until the 18th Century, so our results provide new insights into the patterns of historic animal trafficking."

In historical times, the lion was found across Africa, the Middle East and India.

Dr Nobuyuki Yamaguchi of the Wildlife Conservation Unit at the University of Oxford said the growth of civilisations along the Egyptian Nile and Sinai Peninsula almost 4,000 years ago stopped gene flow, thereby isolating lion populations. The lion survived in the wild in western north Africa until about 100 years ago.

Dr Yamaguchi said: "Western north Africa was the nearest region to Europe to sustain lion populations until the early twentieth century, making it an obvious and practical source for mediaeval merchants.

"Apart from a tiny population in north-west India, lions had been practically exterminated outside sub-Saharan Africa by the turn of the 20th Century."

The Royal Menagerie was a collection of lions, leopards, bears and other exotic animals that were probably gifts to English monarchs.

It was established in the 12th and 13th Centuries by King John, in Woodstock near Oxford, and was later moved to the Tower of London. It was finally closed in 1835, on the orders of the Duke of Wellington.

The remaining animals were moved to the Zoological Society's Gardens in Regent's Park, now known as London Zoo.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7311134.stm

posted in Archaeology - 2 replies

So you want to work in...Archaeology

Jahvan — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:13:01 GMT

From: Careers advice > Graduate @
http://jobsadvice.guardian.co.uk/graduate/story/0,,2227770,00.html

So you want to work in ...
Archaeology

Programmes like Time Team have made us think a little more about what could lie beneath our feet.
After studying for an undergraduate degree in archaeology, you should have an idea of the level of patience and persistence required to work, quite literally on occasions, in this field.

Jobs are varied and wages will depend on which area of work you opt for. For example, salaries for excavation diggers can be as low as £14,000 at first, and based on short-term contracts. But what price discovering a piece of pottery that dates back centuries?

Our experts unearth some advice.

An employer says ...

Don Henson, head of education and outreach, Council for British Archaeology britarch.ac.uk

There is now a high visibility of archaeology in the media, which has had a positive impact. Whether that will make people want to become archaeologists, we'll have to see. People going to university have one eye on the fees they have to pay, so they are perhaps looking at jobs with good salaries.

There are four or five main streams. You've got fieldwork excavations, mostly organised through charitable institutions or limited companies, which bid for work. They employ a lot of archaeologists.

Then there are those who work either for a national organisation or in local government caring for the historical environment. Very often these jobs are more stable, but there are less of them.

Some people stay on in university doing research and teaching. Another stream is museum work, looking after finds or putting them on display to the public. You could also become an independent consultant, advising building construction companies on any archaeological problems they may face or analysing finds for big field units.

If all you've done is watch Indiana Jones, you will be very disappointed with the profession. Time Team gives a much more realistic idea of what's involved. But it's very rare to be disappointed, most people go into it with their eyes open.

A university says ...

Dr Mark Horton, head of education, department of archaeology and anthropology, University of Bristol bristol.ac.uk

There's a popular misconception about archaeology. Obviously there are a lot of people out there digging up fields in the freezing cold, but nowadays the bulk of archaeological work is lab-based. For every day spent on site you spend about four in the lab.

There are very few degree programmes like archaeology, which spans the sciences and humanities. It is an incredibly demanding subject, with the breadth of skills needed and the range of material. At Bristol we teach everything from human evolution to the industrial revolution. We deal with the whole history of humankind.

The number of people wanting to study archaeology is tiny. More people apply to do history at Bristol than apply to read archaeology at undergraduate level in the whole of the UK. Future salaries might be a reason, but that doesn't stop people working in the media. I think it's also the fact that there are incompetent careers teachers who say, "Why don't you do a safe subject?"

About half of our final-year students are planning to stay in archaeology. You have to be passionate about it. I just think it's absolutely fascinating. Touching artefacts, telling stories based on evidence that you have discovered, and knowing that if you had not discovered it, no one would have.

A graduate says ...

Jacqueline Wilson, PhD candidate, University of Bristol

Although I was born in Manchester, I grew up in the country outside a small town in southern Ireland and spent summers roaming across fields, rivers and ditches with my dog. Even at a young age I knew that the lumps and bumps I found in these fields were the archaeological evidence of past communities long since gone.

I am now in year three of my PhD and my research is exploring the links between the Roman world and Ireland.

The undergraduate degree is really the first step and it is as much about facilitating transferable skills for people as it is about archaeology itself. You will graduate with a degree that will open doors for you across a broad range of occupations. If, however, you want to work as a field archaeologist then a good, specialised master's in landscape archaeology gives you the next level of training.

I am very fortunate to be fully funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council for my doctoral research and I am working with the greatest bunch of academics, staff and students you could imagine. I can't stress how important it is to have this type of support, as doctoral research can be a lonely occupation without it.

My worst experience so far has been struggling to get out of a trench where the soil had turned to thick mush in the rain. As I am a bit short and was laughing so much I couldn't physically lift my legs out, I had to be pulled out before I sank completely. But that's archaeology for you and to be honest, it is an experience not to be missed.

posted in Archaeology - 0 replies

Archaeologists Unveil Finds in Rome Digs

bobs — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:22:46 GMT

A sixth-century copper factory, medieval kitchens still stocked with pots and pans, and remains of Renaissance palaces are among the finds unveiled Friday by archaeologists digging up Rome in preparation for a new subway line. Archaeologists have been probing the depths of the Eternal City at 38 digs, many of which are near famous monuments or on key thoroughfares.

Over the last nine months, remains - including Roman taverns and 16th-century palace foundations - have turned up at the central Piazza Venezia and near the ancient Forum where works are paving the way for one of the 30 stations of Rome's third subway line.

"The medieval and Renaissance finds that were brought to light in Piazza Venezia are extremely important for their rarity," said archaeologist Mirella Serlorenzi, who is working on the site.

Serlorenzi said that among the most significant discoveries in a ninth-century kitchen were three pots that were used to heat sauce. Only two others had been found previously in Italy.

The copper factory "factory" was used to work on copper alloys, and it consisted of small ovens, traces of which can be seen. Small copper ingots were found and are being analyzed.

The archaeological investigations are needed only for stairwells and air ducts, as the 15 miles of stations and tunnels will be dug at a depth of 80 to 100 feet - below the level of any past human habitation, experts said.

However, most of the digs still have to reach the earth strata that date back to Roman times, where plenty of surprises may be waiting. That may create problems between planners and conservationists, officials said.

"It is impossible that there will not be situations of conflict. We know that in some cases the conflict will create a removal of ancient ruins," Rome's archaeological superintendent Angelo Bottini told The Associated Press.

Under Italy's strict conservation laws, it will be up to Bottini's office for Rome to decide whether a find will be removed, destroyed or encased within the subway's structures.

Countless public and private works have been scrapped over the years in Rome and across Italy, and it is not uncommon for developers to fail to report a find and plow through ancient treasures.

Rome's 2.8 million inhabitants can rely on just two subway lines, which only skirt the center and leave it clogged with traffic and tourists.

Plans for a third line that would serve the history-rich heart of Rome have been put off for decades amid funding shortages and fears that a wealth of discoveries would halt work.

The $4.6-billion project is due for completion in 2015, but parts of the line are scheduled to open in 2011, with high-tech automatic trains to transport 24,000 passengers per hour.

http://www.physorg.com/news124169829.html

posted in Archaeology - 1 reply

House of Augustus opens to public

bobs — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 16:53:52 GMT

By Christian Fraser
BBC News, Rome

Almost 50 years ago, archaeologists searching for the ruined house of Augustus found a tiny clue buried deep in 2,000 years' worth of rubble overlooking the Forum in Rome.
The single fragment of painted plaster, discovered in masonry-filled rooms, led the experts to unearth a series of exquisite frescoes commissioned by the man who would later become Rome's first emperor.

On Sunday following decades of painstaking restoration, the frescoes in vivid shades of blue, red and ochre went on public show for the first time since they were painted in about 30BC.

One large room boasts a theatrical theme, its walls painted to resemble a stage with narrow side-doors.

High on the wall a comic mask peers through a small window.

Other trompe l'oeil designs include an elegant garden vista, yellow columns and even a meticulously sketched blackbird.

Builders' names preserved

The Rome authorities have spent nearly 2m euros preserving the four Augustus rooms - thought to comprise a dining-room, bedroom, an expansive reception hall at ground-level and a small study on the first floor.

Experts say the frescoes are among the most splendid surviving examples of Roman wall paintings, on a par with those found in the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Archaeologists believe they may have been painted by an Egyptian.

In the large entrance hall, graffiti on one wall is believed to have been left by the builders, who seem to have sketched out geometric designs, possibly for mosaic floors, and left their names.

In 31BC Augustus - or Octavian, as he was then known - had triumphed over the combined forces of Mark Antony and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium.

The victory brought Egypt, and with it immense wealth, into the empire.

But if the frescoes on the walls are exquisite, their surroundings, though impressive, with vaulted ceilings, are less than palatial.

The Roman historian Suetonius described how Augustus lived in a modest house on the Palatine before he assumed supreme power and built a sprawling imperial complex higher up the hill.

Painstaking reconstruction

The great-nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar, he took the name Augustus on becoming sole ruler in 27BC after the civil wars that followed Julius Caesar's assassination.

His rise ended the Roman Republic and marked the beginning of the Roman Empire. He died in AD14.

Some of his interior decoration was found intact when the Italian archaeologist Professor Gianfilippo Carettoni finally broke through to the rooms in the early 1970s.

Other frescoes had to be pieced together from fragments found by a team led by Irene Jacopi, the archaeologist in charge of the Palatine Hill.

The art is so delicate that no more than five visitors at a time will be able to enter the rooms. Nevertheless, they are expected to attract large crowds.

Recent archaeological work in Rome has boosted tourism by as much as 40%, according to the city authorities.

The Palatine Hill has been giving up new finds for years, although much of the site is off limits to visitors and under threat of subsidence.

Future revelations

The minister of culture, Francesco Rutelli, said that 12m euros had been set aside to help protect the extensive ruins.

Mr Rutelli, who is standing for election as mayor of Rome next month, described the opening of the Augustus rooms as an "extraordinary event, the fruit of decades of work".

"Ancient history is here," he said. "Every day you have a new discovery. It's incredible - in the very heart of the city, in the middle of the traffic and ordinary life."

In November last year archaeologists located a grotto deep beneath Augustus's imperial palace that may have been the shrine where ancient Romans worshipped Romulus, the founder of the city according to legend.

Next year archaeologists hope to open to the public Augustus's mausoleum - once a monument in white travertine marble that is now an overgrown ruin.

From Monday entry to the Roman Forum will no longer be free. Instead, visitors must pay 11 euros ($16; £8) for a combined ticket that will give entry to the Forum, the Palatine Hill and the nearby Colosseum.

Officials say the proceeds will fund increased security and restoration work around Rome. "There are exciting new finds every month," said Mr Rutelli, "and we need this money to preserve these treasures for future generations".

Article + pictures: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7286305.stm

posted in Archaeology - 0 replies

'Ned Kelly's burial site' found

bobs — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 10:25:25 GMT

Scientists in Australia believe they have found the grave of 19th Century outlaw and national icon Ned Kelly.
His remains are thought to be among those of executed prisoners found on the site of an abandoned prison in the southern city of Melbourne.

Kelly was a bank robber who was hanged in 1880 for murdering three policemen.

After evading arrest for several years, he used home-made armour in a final shoot-out with police; his exploits have been the subject of several films.

The scene of his last stand has also been designated a national heritage site.

Kelly's story divides modern Australians, says the BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney. Some see him as a folk hero, who fought the colonial British establishment, others simply as a violent criminal.

Either way, the Irish convict's son's daring bank robberies and escapes made him a legend.

Guns blazing

After two years on the run, police finally caught up with Kelly and his gang.

The outlaw made his own armour by beating plough blades into shape and walked towards police with guns blazing. He was shot 20 times but survived.

He was hanged for his crimes in 1880 and buried in a mass grave at the old Melbourne Gaol, but the whereabouts of his body has remained a mystery.

His remains, and those of others, were thought to have been reburied half a century later at Pentridge prison in Melbourne.

Archaeologists say they have now found the remains of 32 bodies in coffins in various states of decomposition. The bodies will now be subject to forensic tests.

"We believe we have conclusively found the burial site, but that is very different from finding the remains," Jeremy Smith, senior archaeologist with Heritage Victoria, told Reuters.

"If the remains exist, then we will have found them."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7285907.stm

posted in Archaeology - 0 replies

Innovative Archaeological Survey Reveals Unknown Aspects Of China's Past

bobs — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:28:52 GMT

ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2008) — Imagine future archaeologists trying to understand Illinois, California or New York based on a few excavations in each of those states. They might excavate small areas in city centers, since those sites would probably be the first ruins they would come across. Meanwhile, the archaeologists they might fail to notice or study farms, suburbs, shopping malls, canals and airports.

Although still relatively unknown to the general public, an archaeological method that is being practiced at several locations around the world helps scientists overcome such bias toward large, readily noticeable sites. The method is called a regional settlement pattern survey. It involves walking systematically over a large landscape to find traces of archaeological sites on the surface of the ground. This field procedure can yield a holistic, integrated view of how settlement has shifted in a region over the course of history.

For the past 13 years, archaeologists from The Field Museum and Shandong University have used this method to develop a multifarious overview of an important but understudied region along the northeastern coast of The People's Republic of China. By the time the project is completed, the archaeologists expect to have walked systematically over 1,500 square kilometers around the coastal city of Rizhao in Shandong Province.

"Most people understand traditional archaeological excavation from TV shows, but the regional survey method is not well known," said Dr. Anne Underhill, Field Museum China specialist and American project director and lead author of research about the Shandong survey to be published in the March 2008 Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. "The team has walked over every kind of terrain possible, including farms and orchards, towns and forested hills."

The Shandong University-Field Museum project in southeastern Shandong Province (including both survey and excavation, and involving four Shandong University professors) is one of the longest running collaborations of any kind between Chinese and American scientists. In the early 1990s, the Chinese government decided to allow foreigners to collaborate in fieldwork with Chinese professionals for the first time since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The team decided to focus on investigating key changes in settlement and regional organization during the late prehistoric, Longshan period, c. 2600-1900 B.C.

"Scientific archaeology was introduced into China during the 1920s, and during the 1980s, investigations about the rise of civilization increased," said Dr. Hui Fang, Professor of Archaeology at the Center for East Asian Archaeology Studies at Shandong University and co-author of the research. "Then in the 1990s, abundant results from archaeological fieldwork made it possible to adopt new approaches such as the theory and method of settlement pattern studies to interpret the process of the beginning of civilization in areas such as Shandong province."

Expertise with the survey method has been provided by two Field Museum scientists and co-authors of the research, Dr. Gary Feinman, Curator of Mesoamerican Anthropology, and Linda Nicholas, Adjunct Curator of Anthropology. They surveyed extensively for archaeological sites in Oaxaca, Mexico, before joining the Shandong survey team.

"When we began the project in China, systematic regional surveys had already proven to be an empirical key for understanding and evaluating the rise of and changes in early civilizations in highland Mexico, the Andean region, and the Near East," Feinman said. "Since then, two prominent scholars have called the advent of settlement pattern studies across the world the most important breakthrough in archaeology during the second half of the 20th century."

The method is very effective, Nicholas said. "We discover and map many ancient sites on a daily basis. Because so few of these sites will ever be excavated, the survey maps become the only permanent record of most ancient settlements in a region."

Over the years and centuries, human activity (such as plowing and construction) and natural processes (such as erosion) bring many ancient artifacts to the surface of the ground. Survey crews look for such evidence by walking in the late fall or early winter when crops have been harvested, increasing the visibility of objects. Crew members, who are spaced out evenly, learn to identify the characteristics (color, paste, style, etc.) of pottery sherds that indicate particular time periods.

"The large-scale organization of culture can only be understood by revealing the overall layout of settlements in a region and comparing their sizes," Underhill said. "Then one can begin to analyze other aspects of regional organization such as population density, distances between sites, and distances to water sources, all of which can reveal information about economics, trade, interactions, and other factors."

Southeastern Shandong Province poorly understood

China has an extraordinarily rich record of archaeological remains, from the Paleolithic period to the historic dynasties. Given the vast number of sites throughout Shandong Province, southeastern Shandong had not been a focus of research for quite some time prior to this research project.

Previous excavations in 1936 and test excavations during the early 1980s uncovered elegant, black pottery and jade items over a large area, suggesting that the Longshan period site of Liangchengzhen was some kind of regional center during the Longshan (c. 2600-1900 BC).

The systematic, regional survey has been able to identify other Longshan sites in the area and objectively determine that Liangchengzhen was indeed a large center as early investigators hypothesized. It also revealed another large center in the south, Yaowangcheng, that may have been a rival.

The survey also suggests that the agricultural colonization of the region occurred primarily during the later half of the Neolithic period. This was rapidly followed by the development of a four-tiered settlement hierarchy with two primary centers during the Early Longshan. The archaeologists conclude that the region was not merely a marginal backwater throughout its history in comparison to areas in the central Yellow River valley where known early states developed, as some scholars believe.

"Regional survey data are one key to understanding and comparing the rise of early Chinese civilization, both from one part of China to another as well as with other global regions," Feinman said.

The broad-based results of the regional settlement pattern survey clearly illustrate that there were diverse pathways to social complexity in northern China.

"Our collaborative project has been very successful," Fang said. "In comparison with 13 years ago, we now know much more about the process of the rise of complex society in the southeastern Shandong area."

Adapted from materials provided by Field Museum, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080303113353.htm

posted in Archaeology - 2 replies

Dig uncovers Iron Age waterhole

bobs — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:26:45 GMT

Archaeologists have found what they describe as a remarkable Iron Age waterhole on the site of an extension to York University.
The waterhole complete with a preserved wickerwork lining was revealed during excavations in Heslington village.

The structure also contains fragments of wood giving clues to the landscape of the time, about 2,500 years ago.

The university's archaeology department plans more digs at the site, which also contains an important Roman building.

The university plans to open the site to local archaeological community groups as well as allowing students access to a live dig.

'Fantastic opportunity'

Steve Roskams, of the Department of Archaeology, said: "Exciting archaeological discoveries very often follow hot on the heels of planned commercial developments. That's what has happened here.

"It's a fantastic opportunity to learn more about what our local landscape was like thousands of years ago, and we intend to make the most of it."

Initial analysis suggests that the only evidence of high-status Roman architecture dates from quite late in the Roman period.

"If this is confirmed," said Mr Roskams, "it could indicate that York was essentially little more than a military enclave during the early part of the Roman occupation, only developing into the full-scale imperial settlement of Eboracum centuries later."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/7283859.stm

posted in Archaeology - 0 replies

Reburial for Anglo Saxon remains

bobs — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:03:40 GMT

About 3,000 skeletons are to be reburied in an Anglo-Saxon ceremony at a North Lincolnshire church where they were discovered almost 30 years ago.
The ancient language will be used by the Reverend David Rowett at St Peters Church in Barton-upon-Humber to mark the return of the historic bones.

Unearthed between 1978 and 1984, the bones have been used by English Heritage to research diseases.

They are one of the largest collections found on a single site in England.

King Canute

The collection, housed in a specially built bone repository called an ossuary to protect the remains, was re-dedicated to the ground on Monday ahead of the ceremony.

A spokesman for English Heritage said the service on Friday evening would be spoken in Anglo Saxon, as a mark of respect.

The research was done in partnership with the Church of England, which allowed the church to be reopened for the first time since 1972 for people to view the bones.

The oldest skeleton, of a man aged about 50-years-old, is thought to date back to the reign of King Canute (1016-1035) and has been restored to its original oak coffin.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/7283445.stm

posted in Archaeology - 0 replies

China finds 10,000 year old skull

Jahvan — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 05:22:39 GMT

AFP/Yahoo News @:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080123/sc_afp/chinaarchaeologyscience_080123131946;_ylt=AsAWmK1FsApO.P09ukONRo3POrgF

BEIJING (AFP) - An almost complete human skull dating back 80,000 to 100,000 years has been unearthed in central China, state media reported Wednesday.

The skull, consisting of 16 pieces, was dug up last month after two years of excavation at a site in Xuchang in Henan province, the China Daily said.

The pieces were fossilised because they were buried near the mouth of a spring whose water had a high calcium content, the report said.

The People's Daily newspaper said the skull was expected to provide "direct evidence" concerning the origins of human beings in east Asia, as very few human fossils dating back to about 100,000 years ago had ever been found outside Africa.

The China Daily said that the skull, with protruding bones over the eye sockets and a small forehead, was "the greatest discovery in China after the Peking Man and Upper Cave Man skulls were found in Beijing early last century".

However, experts contacted by AFP said the importance of the discovery appeared to be over-stated in the reports.

"It is far from the greatest judging from points such as the completeness, the time, and the significance of problems it can explain," said Wu Xinzhi, a professor and academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"So far, it just can prove that there were human beings living in Henan about 80,000 to 100,000 years ago and the shape of their heads was roughly what the skull shows."

Besides the skull, more than 30,000 animal fossils and stone and bone artifacts were found over the past two years in an area of 260 square metres (2,800 square feet), the report said.

The oldest human fossil found in China so far was a tooth unearthed in 1965 in Yuanmou county in the southwestern province of Yunnan that dated back 1.7 million years, said Wu.

*Editors Note: 1.7 Million Years; thats a long time...
Who fills in the gap between the so called "Lucy" and the first universally agreed upon "first" civilization, the Sumerians of Mesopotamia?
and why is the first civilization on mankind-a pretty important role in history- a word that registers in my Mac's dictionary?
Crossing the red line here...

posted in Archaeology - 28 replies