History

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Last-survivor of transatlantic slave trade discovered

Her 83-year-old grandson, Johnny Crear, had no idea about his grandmother's historic story.

In the 1960s, he had witnessed violence against civil rights marchers in Selma, where protesters had been addressed by Dr Martin Luther King.

On discovering his grandmother had been enslaved, he told BBC News: "I had a lot of mixed emotions.

"I thought if she hadn't undergone what had happened, I wouldn't be here.

"But that was followed by anger."

FULL REPORT

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Neanderthals ate sharks and dolphins

Neanderthals were eating fish, mussels and seals at a site in present-day Portugal, according to a new study.

The research adds to mounting evidence that our evolutionary relatives may have relied on the sea for food just as much as ancient modern humans.

For decades, the ability to gather food from the sea and from rivers were seen as something unique to our own species.

Scientists found evidence for an intensive reliance on seafood at a Neanderthal site in southern Portugal.

Neanderthals living between 106,000 and 86,000 years ago at the cave of Figueira Brava near Setubal were eating mussels, crab, fish - including sharks, eels and sea bream - seabirds, dolphins and seals.

The research team, led by Dr João Zilhão from the University of Barcelona, Spain, found that marine food made up about 50% of the diet of the Figueira Brava Neanderthals. The other half came from terrestrial animals, such as deer, goats, horses, aurochs (ancient wild cattle) and tortoises.

Neanderthals 'dived in the ocean' for shellfish

Brain-boosters?

Some of the earliest known evidence for the exploitation of marine resources by modern humans (Homo sapiens) dates to around 160,000 years ago in southern Africa.

A few researchers previously proposed a theory that the brain-boosting fatty acids seafood contributed to enhanced cognitive development in early modern humans.

This, the theory goes, could help account for a period of marked invention and creativity that started among modern human populations in Africa around 200,000 years ago. It might also have assisted modern humans to outcompete other human groups such as the Neanderthals and Denisovans

But the researchers found that the Neanderthal inhabitants of Figueira Brava relied on the sea on a scale comparable to modern human groups living at a similar time in southern Africa.

Commenting on the findings, Dr Matthew Pope, from the Institute of Archaeology at UCL, UK, said: "Zilhão and the team claim to have identified 'middens'. This is a shorthand for humanly created structures (piles, heaps, mounds) formed almost entirely of the shell.

"They are important as they suggest a systematic and organised behaviour, from collection to processing to discard."

Dr Pope, who was not involved with the current study, added: "In later periods across the world, coastal shell-hunter-gatherers seem to invest in these structures in monumental ways, even having burials within them.

"So to describe these accumulations as 'middens' is a bold and loaded step.

"Certainly, they make a strong case that these are comparable to similar accumulations in the Middle Stone Age of Africa."

The study is published in the journal Science.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52054653

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'Dinosaurs walked through Antarctic forests'

Scientists drilling off the coast of West Antarctica have found the fossil remains of forests that grew in the region 90 million years ago - in the time of the dinosaurs.

Their analysis of the material indicates the continent back then would have been as warm as parts of Europe are today but that global sea levels would have been over 100m higher than at present.

The research, led from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Germany, is published in the journal Nature.

It's emerged from an expedition in 2017 to recover marine sediments in Pine Island Bay.

AWI and its partners, including the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), used a novel cassette drill-mechanism called MeBo to extract core material some 30m under the seafloor.

When the team examined the sediments in the lab, it found traces of ancient soils and pollen and even tree roots.

• Warning from 'Antarctica's vast forests'
• The deepest point on land found in Antarctica
• Journey to the 'doomsday glacier'

FULL REPORT

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FROZEN MUMMIES OF THE ANDES

Human Sacrifices in the Sacred Landscape of the Inca

Team members survey remains of one of the structures on the summit of Llullaillaco.

The Incas are renowned for massive carved stone structures, the construction of thousands of miles of roads, and the establishment of one of the greatest empires in the ancient Americas. However, one of their achievements remains especially impressive. In just over sixty years (ca. 1470–1532 CE), they constructed stone structures on nearly 100 mountains ranging from 17,000 to 22,000 feet (ca. 6,700 m), and they did this in an area spanning 2,000 miles in the Andes.

It is the high altitude of so many ruins that has captured the public’s attention, not least because of the great amount of energy, organization, and in some cases specialized techniques necessary for constructing and maintaining structures at such heights. Even people who have lived all their lives at 13,000 feet (ca. 4,000 m)—the highest that permanent villages are normally found— have difficulty in reaching, let alone working at, altitudes over 17,000 feet (ca. 5,200 m).

Nowhere else on earth have archaeological remains been found at 22,000 feet and, indeed, this altitude would not even be reached again for four centuries after the Incas. The Incas not only managed to overcome physical challenges, such as climbing in thin air, altitude illness, and route-finding in difficult terrain, they also surmounted a psychological barrier brought on by a fear of the deities inhabiting sacred mountains.

The Andean Belief System

FULL REPORT

Edited April 2, 2020 by CaaC (John)

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Researchers Map How Ancient Human Migrations Changed Europe's Landscape Forever

In the wake of the last great ice age, humans flooded across Europe in slow, creeping tides.

A new study suggests some of those mass migrations might have changed the landscape more than others. And, strangely, it's not the people we might have expected that had the biggest impact.

By comparing the timing of significant migrations with changes in vegetation, researchers from across the UK and Europe have found the first farming communities to till the land had a surprisingly small impact on the ecology.

The same can't be said for a second wave of Bronze Age migrants trudging their way west from the Russian steppes, whose movements were associated with a dramatic reduction in broad-leaf forests and an increase in pasture and grassland.

The study relies on a range of assumptions and caveats, so some caution is required. With that in mind, the results add to the emerging story of a Europe transformed by successive waves of cultures introducing new languages, new genes, and new ways of survival.

Pull at the genetic tapestry that is modern Europe and you'll quickly find the threads lead back to different cradles around the Asian continent.

One of the oldest traces its way into the Anatolian Peninsula, a land now dominated by Turkey. Once, hunter-gatherers, the populations picked up a few farming tricks from their neighbours roughly 11,000 years ago before inching their way northwest.

DNA left by this Neolithic wave of Anatolian crop-growers can still be found in modern European populations, along with the genetic legacy of other mass migrations.

The researchers used publicly available ancient and present-day genome studies to produce a map showing the distributions of three different genetic populations across Europe throughout the ages.

One comprised of the original hunter-gather populations who had established themselves across the post-ice-age landscape. The second was the Anatolian farmers, who came next.

A third population are today referred to as the Yamnaya culture, a name borrowed from a Russian word for 'pit' in reference to their signature style of the grave.

These people moved into Europe during the Late Copper to Early Bronze Age more than 5,000 years ago, emerging from the lands to the north of the Black Sea and bringing with them relatively advanced technology of horses and wheels, not to mention a talent for digesting milk.

Comparing the way each of the gene pools dispersed revealed a significant difference in the speed of the two migrations.

Perhaps to nobody's surprise, the Bronze Age Yamnaya took far less time to establish themselves than the Anatolian farmers. Having horses no doubt helped, but there is also the possibility that the land had already been made traversable.

Looking back to the earlier wave of Neolithic agriculturalists, the genetic map shows two prongs slowly marching across the land. A close examination of land cover and climatic variable maps failed to show any great shifts in the kinds of vegetation aligning with their branching movement.

The researchers do note that other studies have identified local impacts on the environment in some parts of the continent, but overall their influence doesn't seem to have been widespread.

When it comes to the Bronze Age migration, the changes were comparatively dramatic, with a large scale depletion in the forest and the establishment of grasslands.

"As these peoples were moving westward, we see increases in the amount of pasture lands and decreases in broadleaf forests throughout the continent," says geogeneticist Fernando Racimo from the University of Copenhagen.

It's important to keep in mind that it's difficult to prove causation. Changes to the climate could also have played a key role in the evolving ecology, laying out feeding grounds for the horses and opening the land to travel.

But the models used by the researchers strongly suggest that swelling populations along the pathway of Bronze Age migration were responsible for the changing vegetation.

Relying heavily on DNA data with its known idiosyncrasies leaves plenty of room for debate, as does the potential for untested variables to be behind the changes to Europe's greenery.

The story of Europe's past is far from complete, but every new detail adds new insights into the ways past cultures might have affected the landscape as they moved, telling us a thing or two about how the land will continue to change in the future.  

"European landscapes have been transformed drastically over thousands of years," says Jessie Woodbridge, a physical geographer at the University of Plymouth in the UK.

"Knowledge of how people interacted with their environment in the past has implications for understanding the way in which people use and impact upon the world today."

This research was published in PNAS.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/researchers-map-how-ancient-human-migrations-changed-europes-landscape-forever/ar-BB12e0mR

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Surprise Discovery Reveals Neanderthals Loved Seafood And Were Excellent Fisherpeople

SLIDES - 1/3

Neanderthals were apparently much more partial to seafood than previously thought: new research shows that Neanderthal communities living in Portugal during the last ice age were just as keen on fishing as our modern human ancestors. 

Molluscs, crustaceans, fish, birds, and marine mammals like dolphins and seals made up as much as half the diet of these Iberian ancients, the new study shows. That makes them resourceful fisher-hunter-gatherers, with behaviours closer to modern-day Homo sapiens than anyone realised. 

The excavation at the cave of Figueira Brava near Setubal in Portugal revealed middens (domestic waste dumps) dated to around 106,000 and 86,000 years ago, packed with bones and shells from marine animals. These would have been eaten alongside more traditional fare like deer and goats.

The finding is a significant one – the fatty acids provided by this sort of seafood diet, such as Omega-3, can boost brain development. These sorts of eating habits perhaps contributed to the "emergence of cognitive and behavioural modernity" in ancient people, the researchers say.

"Figueira Brava provides the first record of significant marine resource consumption among Europe's Neanderthals," write the researchers in their published paper.

"Consistent with rapidly accumulating evidence that Neanderthals possessed a fully symbolic material culture, the subsistence evidence reported here further questions the behavioural gap once thought to separate them from modern humans."

The sheer amount of seafood remains discovered, and the distance of the settlement from the coast (about two kilometres or a little over a mile), suggests that Neanderthals used baskets and bags to go fishing with, the researchers say.

This ability to plunder food from seas and rivers has long been regarded as an exclusively human trait, not something we shared with Neanderthals – and that makes the findings at this coastal site significant.

Previous evidence for a seafood diet amongst Neanderthals has been patchy: while it has been observed in other parts of the world, it hasn't been clear just how widespread these evolving eating habits actually were.

Experts know much more about the diets of early modern humans in southern Africa around the same time, and the new study suggests that the make-up of this diet isn't all that different from the one adopted by Neanderthals who lived by the coast of Portugal.

Considering that snacking on seafood and exploiting marine resources could well have played a big part in triggering the expansion of the early human beings and pushing forward the increasing sophistication of our societies, pinning down exactly when and where it happened is an intriguing challenge for anthropologists.

As comprehensive as this discovery is, it's only one part of the world – we don't have a pattern yet. The researchers think that traces of other similar communities may have been washed away from rising sea levels during the end of the last ice age, so there might not be any more to find.

Even so, it sheds substantially more light on the lifestyles and behaviours of the Neanderthals – and suggests that in their taste for seafood at least, they perhaps weren't all that different from our early ancestors.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/surprise-discovery-reveals-neanderthals-loved-seafood-and-were-excellent-fisherpeople/ar-BB11UIPw

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50,000-year-old string found at France Neanderthal site

A piece of 50,000-year-old string - the oldest yet discovered - found in a cave in France has cast further doubt on the idea that Neanderthals were cognitively inferior to modern humans.

A study published in Scientific Reports said a tiny, three-ply chord fragment made from bark was spotted on a stone tool recovered from the Abri du Maras.

It implies that Neanderthals understood concepts like pairs, sets and numbers.

Twisted fibres provide the basis for clothes, bags, nets and even boats.

Neanderthals - whose species died out about 40,000 years ago - are already known to have made birch bark tar, art and shell beads.

They also controlled fire, lived in shelters, were skilled hunters of large animals and deliberately buried their dead in graves.

• Neanderthals ate sharks and dolphins
• Neanderthal 'skeleton' is first found in a decade
• Neanderthal 'glue' points to complex thinking

Typically, archaeologists and paleoanthropologists only find faunal remains or stone tools at sites like the Abri du Maras. Perishable materials are usually missing.

But a team of researchers from France, the US and Spain discovered a fragment of chord adhering to the underside of a 60mm- (2.4-inch-) long stone tool.

The chord, believed to have been made with the inner bark of a conifer tree, was approximately 6.2mm long and 0.5mm wide.

Three groups of fibres were separated and twisted clockwise in an "S-twist". Once twisted, the strands were twined anti-clockwise in "Z-twist" to form a chord.

The study - whose lead author was Bruce Hardy of Kenyon College in Ohio - concluded that the production of the chord demonstrated that Neanderthals had a detailed ecological understanding of trees and how to transform them into entirely different functional substances.

The production of the chord also implied a cognitive understanding of numeracy and context-sensitive operational memory, according to the study. That is because it required keeping track of multiple, sequential operations simultaneously.

"Given the ongoing revelations of Neanderthal art and technology, it is difficult to see how we can regard Neanderthals as anything other than the cognitive equals of modern humans," the study said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52267383

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Melting Ice Reveals Ancient Viking Route in Norway

OSLO — Ice patches that melted from the slopes of a remote mountain pass in Norway have revealed artefacts that provide new insight into the livelihood of hunters, traders and travellers along a route thousands of years old, archaeologists said this month.

The relics of this distant past include tunics and mittens woven with wool, leather shoes, arrows are still adorned with feathers, and snowshoes made for horses. Giant stone cairns mark old pathways once used by traders to find their way through the fog and heavy snow. Antlers, bone and animal dung have also been found, the archaeologists behind the project said.

The discoveries, outlined in the scientific journal Antiquity, were made on the central mountain range in Norway’s Innlandet County by the Glacier Archaeology Program, one of many programs worldwide studying what glaciers and ice patches are laying bare as they shift and melt because of climate change.

Archaeologists said that the discoveries have contributed to evidence that a mountain pass at Lendbreen, on the Lomseggen ridge in north-central Norway, was part of a larger network connecting it to the wider Viking world, making it the “first such ice site discovered in Northern Europe.”

Previously, they said, the archaeology of glaciated mountain passes had been derived from research in the Alps.

“The findings are rich,” said Lars Holger Pilo, a Norwegian archaeologist working on the project. “It is obvious that the mountains have been more active in use than previously believed. Although covered in ice, they have used them to pass, from farms in the area, or from one side of the mountains to the other.”

The program started work on the ice patch at Lendbreen in 2006, but attention increased after a wool tunic, which later was dated to the Bronze Age, was found in 2011. That led to subsequent surveys and discoveries of artefacts such as pieces of sledges, remains of horses and kitchen utensils, suggesting the route was used for trade, hunting and farming.

The findings show the pass was used from about A.D. 300 to 1500, with a peak of activity during the Viking Age in the year 1000 that reflected its importance during a period of long-range trade and commerce in Scandinavia.

The items tell a story of how the route was used and reflect local priorities, such as how farming migrated from the bottom of the valley to higher elevations in summer to take advantage of long daylight hours. It was well travelled, and it connected to other parts of the country and ultimately to ports for export.

“The thing that was really revealing is when you look at the chronology of the artefacts,” said Dr James Barrett, a medieval and environmental archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, who has been working with Norwegian archaeologists on the project since 2012.

“You can literally walk in the footsteps of the past,” he said. “It really is showing that in what would seem to be the most remote possible place, the highest elevation is caught up in broader world trends.”

The research in Norway has contributed to the body of archaeological study centred on items found under ice, either in glaciers that rumble roughshod across the terrain or in ice patches that are more stationary and commonly yield pieces that are intact.

These discoveries have illuminated scientists’ understanding of transhumance, which describes how, where and why people moved from one place to another for trade, food, marriage or customs — sometimes over icy mountain passes rather than through the easier terrain, but longer distances, of valleys.

In 1991, hikers accidentally discovered the remains of a man, later nicknamed Ötzi the Tyrolean Iceman, preserved in 5,300 years’ worth of ice and snow in the Italian Alps. This marked the start of a promising period of archaeology that has gained pace as climate warming has revealed more artefacts, said Dr Stephanie Rogers, a research assistant professor at Auburn University’s department of geosciences.

Examination of bacteria from the Iceman has contributed to the understanding of human migration and the movement of pathogens, including the one that causes stomach ulcers, to other parts of the world.

Dr Rogers, who has done research on glacier archaeology in the Alps, said the discovery of the Iceman “really flipped a switch.”

“What was that person doing up there?” she asked, adding that researchers realized that “if we found something in this place, we are going to find something in other places.”

The field of transhumance has gained momentum in the past 10 to 20 years as artefacts have been laid bare because of the warming climate melting ice patches and moving glaciers, Dr Rogers said.

“Perhaps this site in Norway had the perfect characteristics for transhumance across the border,” she said. “But maybe it was just the perfect setting, passed down for hundreds or thousands of years. It seems like this one, in particular, is a treasure trove in terms of artefacts.”

Dr Pilo said the Norwegian team did not find human remains, possibly because relatives of anyone missing likely would have come to rescue their family members. The tunic might have been flung off by a person in the irrational throes of hypothermia, he said.

Although ice patches move less than glaciers do, some of the finds on the Lendbreen patch were displaced vertically, and others were shifted by meltwater and strong winds.

The ruins of an undated stone-built shelter were situated near the top of the ice patch, making Lendbreen the only one of five mountain passes on the Lomseggen ridge to have such a shelter and a large number of cairns. Transportation-related artefacts, such as remains of sledges, walking sticks and pieces of a Bronze Age ski, were also laid bare.

The movement, or lack of movement, of some objects, can also be telling. Iron horseshoes and nails are less likely to have been displaced than the lighter organic objects, and “should, therefore, provide a reliable indication of the route,” the researchers wrote.

Although some of the artefacts were found in pieces, “they do not obliterate what remains a clear trail of features and finds that delineate a short crossing place over the mountain ridge,” according to the findings.

“It was clearly a route of special significance,” the researchers said.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/melting-ice-reveals-ancient-viking-route-in-norway/ar-BB12KP1I#image=1

Edited June 27, 2020 by CaaC (John)

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What can we learn from Robinson Crusoe writer's 1722 plague book?

More than 300 years ago London was in the grip of the Great Plague. Robinson Crusoe writer Daniel Defoe's account about this time - A Journal of the Plague Year - was an early example of faction, which was written afterwards but based on detailed research. And its story of self-isolation and social distancing feels familiar to us right now.

When the Great Plague broke out in 1665 Defoe was just a child. The book he wrote as an adult was a blend of research, personal memories, imagination and possibly of stories told by an uncle who'd stayed in London throughout. Yet it's become the classic account, with scenes and observations which ring true for readers in 2020.

Today's commentators have pointed out how different our experience of Covid-19 would have been before the social media revolution. In 1722 Defoe reminded his readers that when he was a child newspapers barely existed.

But his skill as a writer gave them a detailed picture of the effects of bubonic plague on a community without health services working to support it.

Early in the novel, Defoe writes: "The face of London was now indeed strangely altered... The voice of mourning was truly heard in the streets."

Defoe was a stranger to the two-metre rule. But the practicalities of his narrator's daily life feel all too familiar.

Dr Paula Backscheider of Auburn University in the US is a Defoe expert. She says his writing was so impressively researched that it remains vivid three centuries later.

"It's what New Journalism gave us in the 1970s, with people like Tom Wolfe. There are the unusually deep research and a wealth of anecdote with interviews and the human interest stories which history so often ignores."

She suggests a parallel between Defoe and those who warned the world wasn't prepared to fight something like Covid-19.

"His book came out in 1722 and there had been a terrible plague in Marseilles just before that with at least 40,000 deaths. He was using the lessons of the 1660s to warn his own day."

The book starts with a basic question frequently asked earlier this year - where has this disaster come from?

"...it was brought some said, from Italy... others said it was brought from Candia (Crete); others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came...," writes Defoe.

Defoe records how each house which contained a plague victim was sealed up, with a red cross painted on the door. In theory the family there wasn't allowed out but Defoe records instances where guile or violence or bribery allowed them to escape.

And the question soon arises of self-isolation for even the healthy.

"And finding that I ventured so often out into the streets, he (a friend) earnestly persuaded me to lock myself up and my family and not to suffer any of us to go out of doors," writes Defoe, continuing, "but as I had not laid in a store of provisions it was impossible that we could keep within doors entirely..."

Defoe also anticipates our contemporary concern with asymptomatic carriers.

"One man, who may have really received the infection, and knows it not, but goes abroad and about as a sound person, may give the plague to a thousand people, and neither the person giving the infection nor the persons receiving it know anything of it," he says.

And he describes how shopkeepers devised a 17th Century form of contactless payment.

"The butcher would not touch the money but had it put into a pot full of vinegar, which he kept for that purpose. The buyers carried always small money to make up any odd sum, that they might make no change. They carried bottles for scents and perfumes in their hands."

Dr Backscheider says most historians accept Defoe's picture of the nightmarish effects bubonic plague had on London.

"I think he was much more a journalist than a novelist and he never exaggerates. He's not setting out to chill the blood - the reality was frightening enough. Sociologists and epidemiologists quote him as a source."

And she thinks one of the reasons the book speaks to us in the current crisis is that Defoe took science seriously.

"An author from the Renaissance would have said what had happened was God's work. But the narrator in the book - who's only ever known as HF - is obsessed with observing and recording in a scientific way.

"In the story, he knows he should leave London but, as with Defoe, there's an intellectual engagement and a need to know what had caused the plague.

"The writing feels modern and the book had things to say to us even before what has happened this year."

Almost all we learn of HF is that he's a well-off, middle-class saddler. Defoe shows a social conscience rare for his era in suggesting that working-class people were the most likely to suffer.

"It must be confessed, that though the plague was chiefly among the poor, yet were the poor the most venturous and fearless of it, and went about their employment with a sort of brutal courage... Scarce did they use any caution, but ran into any business they could get employment in..."

Towards the end of 1665, the death count diminished, reducing erratically but then almost to zero.

Defoe is too honest a writer to supply an easy explanation to end his story with: it would be many decades before plagues began to be understood.

But he'd written a brilliant account of the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in Britain - and it can still educate readers three centuries later.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52353832

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This Hungarian Village Welcomed Skull-Shaping Immigrants as The Roman Empire Crumbled

As the Roman Empire drew to a dramatic collapse towards the end of the 5th century, ripples were felt across its former territories. Balances shifted as new powers rushed to fill the vacuums Rome's retreats left behind.

The changes to the everyday lives of the people are far less well documented, but a cemetery in Pannonia Valeria - in what is now Hungary - is shedding light on the cultural upheaval. And it seems that the founders of that community welcomed newcomers - and even adopted their customs, including modifying the shape of their skulls.

During this time, "the population decreased and the settlement structure changed drastically. Communities fled to the western provinces with the promise of safety, while others sought refuge in forts and cities looking for protection," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"The newly arriving groups also founded rural settlements often in connection to the former Roman infrastructure, such as roads and fortified places."

Until around 470 CE, a site now called Mözs-Icsei dűlő was the burial ground of just such a settlement. Its 96 graves have been well documented, with work going back decades.

But archaeologists in Germany and Hungary have now closely examined the remains of 87 individuals, analysing the strontium isotopes in the bones to figure out how the community came together.

That's because some stable isotopes - like strontium - are taken up by plants from the soil. When humans eat these plants, the isotopes can replace some of the calcium in teeth and bones, which can then be dated and matched to geological regions known to have particular isotope ratios.

Using this technique, the team was able to identify three distinct populations across two or three generations buried in the Mözs-Icsei dűlő cemetery.

The first population is a small founder population. They were buried in Roman-style brick graves, with Roman and Hun style grave goods, and the strontium isotope ratios in their bones indicated a largely local diet.

The second is a foreign group of 12 individuals who seem to have arrived at the community around a decade after the founders. They all had similar strontium isotope ratios, indicating that they had a shared origin. Ten of them also had modified skulls, suggesting they practised head shaping - the use of tight cloth bindings in infancy to elongate the still-hardening skull.

We still don't know why ancient cultures practised cranial modification. Although it's dying out today, it's an ancient practice, and there's evidence for it dating back thousands of years all around the world - and, interestingly, it seems to have no effect on cognitive function.

The third, slightly later group suggests that the customs of both earlier populations seem to blend together in the following generation. Not only were there founder-style grave goods included in later burials, but head shaping also seems to have exploded in popularity.

In all, the 96 graves contained 51 individuals with deliberately modified skulls, marking the site as one of the biggest concentrations of artificial cranial deformation in the region.

As we have previously reported, reasons for the practice seem varied globally throughout history - from a marker of social status to a side-effect of binding a baby's soft head to protect it while it grows. Or maybe some people just thought it looked really cool.

Whatever the reasons for it, the practice here is a beautiful example of how a community can grow and thrive under regional strife, joining their differences to build something new together.

"The community .. accepted and integrated men, women, and children of different geographical and cultural backgrounds during the two to three generations of its existence. The isotope data indicate that residential changes played a remarkable role and occurred not only on an individual basis but also in groups of a shared cultural background and lifestyle," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"Placed into the historical narrative, this could be understood as the emergence of a Roman-'Barbarian' Mischkultur (mixed culture), in which Romanised 'Barbarians' and 'barbarised' late Roman population groups were indistinguishable."

The research has been published in PLOS One.

[CaaC (John)+]

HMS Beagle: Dock for Darwin's ship gets protected status

The remains of a rare 19th Century dock built for Charles Darwin's ship HMS Beagle has been recognised as a site of national importance.

The submerged mud berth on the River Roach in Rochford, Essex, will now be protected against unauthorised change.

The ship, launched in 1820, allowed Darwin to make observations that led to his theory of natural selection.

"We are glad to see this site in a quiet corner of Essex given national protection," said Historic England.

"This is a fascinating example of a rare piece of maritime history."

Paglesham mudflats, near Southend, was thought to be the last resting place of the Beagle and investigations into the site began last year.

The team from Wessex Archaeology were able to reveal the outline of the dock using a drone fitted with a specialist camera.

Historic England commissioned the team to research the area ahead of the bicentenary of the vessel's launch this month.

Darwin was aboard the ship on its second great voyage between 1831 and 1836 to survey the South American coast and the Galapagos Islands.

'Significant site'

Following the Beagle's third and final exploratory voyage in 1843, it was refitted as a static watch vessel for the coastguard in 1845, until sold in 1870.

Historic England said documentary evidence showed the ship was in the Rochford dock in 1870 and was likely dismantled there.

The site has been designated as a scheduled monument by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on the advice of Historic England.

Rochford District Council also plan to build a new observation platform at the RSPB Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project, overlooking the River Roach where the ship was moored.

 

Edited May 12, 2020 by CaaC (John)

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Longer overlap for modern humans and Neanderthals

Modern humans began to edge out the Neanderthals in Europe earlier than previously thought, a new study shows.

Tests on remains from a cave in northern Bulgaria suggest Homo sapiens was there as early as 46,000 years ago.

This is up to 2,000 years older than evidence from Italy and the UK.

Around this time, Europe was populated by sparse groups of Neanderthals - a distinct type of human that vanished shortly after modern humans appeared on the scene.

There's considerable debate about the length of time that modern humans overlapped with Neanderthals in Europe and other parts of Eurasia.

This has implications for the nature of contact between the two groups - and perhaps clues to why Neanderthals went extinct.

Two new scientific papers (here and here) describe the finds at Bacho Kiro cave.

A tooth and four bone fragments were identified as broadly human based on their anatomical features.

Helen Fewlass, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and colleagues determined their ages using scientific techniques. Their analysis, in Nature Ecology & Evolution, says the remains yielded ages between 46,000 and 43,000 years ago, assigning them to a stage known as the Initial Upper Palaeolithic.

In the other paper, published in Nature journal, Jean-Jacques Hublin, also from the Max Planck Institute, and team members, detail features of the tooth that are found in modern humans but are absent from Neanderthals.

Furthermore, they were able to retrieve DNA from these remains, demonstrating that they belonged to Homo sapiens and not their evolutionary cousins.

Prof Chris Stringer, research leader for human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London, who was not involved with the latest study, said: "In my view, this is the oldest and strongest published evidence for an IUP (Initial Upper Palaeolithic) presence of H. sapiens in Europe, several millennia before the Neanderthals disappeared."

The bones were found associated with stone tools and artefacts, such as pendants made from cave bear teeth.

These resemble examples found at later sites believed to have been occupied by Neanderthals.

This could suggest the two groups interacted sufficiently for modern humans to influence Neanderthal behaviour.

On this point, Prof Stringer explained: "That is certainly possible, although evidence suggests that Neanderthals were producing jewellery made from eagle talons and shells long before the IUP."

Dr Matt Pope, from the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, UK, and was not involved in either study, said: "If Neanderthals are living - as we tend to think from the genetic evidence - in relatively small dispersed groups of extended families, there may not be that need for complex social coding and symbolism.

"This for me is the exciting thing - Neanderthals may pick up these kinds of symbolisms as they become enmeshed and entangled in the social networks of contact that Homo sapiens will be carrying with them as they colonise Europe."

Ancient networking

The upper date for the Bacho Kiro remains is older than previous evidence of early Homo sapiens settlement from Kents Cavern in Britain (a jawbone dating to between 44,200 and 41,500 years ago) and from the Italian site of Grotta del Cavallo (two teeth dating to 43,000-45,000 years ago and associated with artefacts belonging to the Uluzzian culture).

However, both the British and Italian evidence has been dated using material from the soil layers they were found in. The new paper relied on dating the bones and teeth themselves.

Prof Stringer said the Kents Cavern and Cavallo evidence was "not generally accepted because of uncertainties about their dating or morphology".

A scientific paper published in 2014 proposed that Neanderthals disappeared from Europe between 41,000 and 39,000 years ago with a 95% probability.

However, other scientists have found evidence that Neanderthals may have survived later in some areas.

At the least, the new finds suggest there were around 5,000 years of chronological overlap between Neanderthals and modern humans in Europe.

Dr Pope said there was "no sudden disappearance" of Neanderthals in Europe.

"The new dates, if they're correct, are pushing back the co-existence of Neanderthals and modern humans a couple of thousand years even further than the evidence from Kents Cavern and the Uluzzian dates," he explained.

"In some places, we're getting direct evidence for interbreeding events, which could be evidence of social networking and cohesion... but in other examples, we can still see evidence of clear Neanderthal morphologies, suggesting populations that aren't - to any degree - hybridising or being absorbed."

Prof Stringer said initial dispersals of modern humans into Europe may have been by small bands which could not sustain their presence in the face of a larger Neanderthal presence. Indeed, DNA evidence suggests some of these early settlers contributed minimally to the gene pools of later populations.

There is even earlier evidence of Homo sapiens in Europe. In 2019, researchers published evidence that a skull fragment from Apidima cave in Greece, dated to 210,000 years ago, belonged to Homo sapiens.

However, scientists say this very early foray into Europe was not permanent, and the Apidima Homo sapiens population was later replaced by Neanderthals.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52614870

[CaaC (John)+]

Sinkhole opens near the Pantheon, revealing 2,000-year-old Roman paving stones

© Provided by Live Science Archaeological investigations following the opening of a sinkhole in Piazza della Rotonda in front of the Pantheon in Rome have unearthed the ancient pavement of the imperial era.

A sinkhole unexpectedly opened up in front of the Pantheon in Rome last month, revealing imperial paving stones that were laid over a millennia ago, news sources report. 

The sinkhole, located in the Piazza della Rotonda, is almost 10 square feet (1 square meter) wide and just over 8 feet (2.5 m) deep. Inside the hole, archaeologists found seven ancient slabs made of travertine, a type of sedimentary rock. 

Luckily, no one was hurt when the sinkhole collapsed on the afternoon of April 27, because the normally crowded piazza was empty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sinkholes like this one, however, are becoming an increasingly common problem in Rome. 

The stones uncovered by the sinkhole were created around the same time that the Pantheon was built, from 27 B.C. to 25 B.C., according to Daniela Porro, Rome special superintendent. They were designed by Marcus Agrippa, a friend of Emperor Augustus, Porro told Italian news agency ANSA. However, the Pantheon and the piazza were completely rebuilt sometime between A.D. 118 and 128 by the emperor Hadrian, and the area was further modified at the beginning of the third century by the emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

This find is actually a rediscovery: The slabs were first found in the 1990s, when service lines were being laid in the piazza, according to ANSA. The new sinkhole swallowed about 40 sanpietrini, or cobblestones, which fell into a service tunnel holding cables and pipelines, according to Roma Today. 

Sinkholes, called "voragine" in Italian, are now fairly common in Rome. For most of the past 100 years or so, Rome typically experienced 30 voragini or other collapses every year; but that number began tripling starting in 2009, according to The Local, an Italian news outlet. For example, in 2018 the city counted a record-breaking 175 sinkholes, and 2019 brought 100 of these voragini, The Local reported. By comparison, Naples had 20 reported sinkholes in 2019.

What causes these sinkholes? Ancient human-made cavities, including those from quarrying, tunnelling and constructing catacombs, have made the ground unstable, especially after heavy rainfall.

"The most sensitive area is eastern Rome, where materials were quarried in ancient times," geologist Stefania Nisio, who is working on a project to map Rome's sinkholes, told Adnkronos. "The main cause of a sinkhole in the city is the presence of an underground cavity."

In addition, much of Rome sits on soft, sandy soil that is easily eroded by water and shaken by the vibrations of cars and scooters, The Local reported. 

The city's leaders announced a multi-million-euro plan to fix its streets in 2018, but progress has been slow, according to The Local. Until these upgrades are made, sinkholes may continue to reveal ancient architecture and artefacts, such as these paving stones. 

"This is further evidence of Rome's inestimable archaeological riches," Porro told ANSA

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/sinkhole-opens-near-the-pantheon-revealing-2000-year-old-roman-paving-stones/ar-BB143j8V

[CaaC (John)+]

For the First Time Ever, You Can Watch the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge via Livestream

Tourists can't experience next month's summer solstice at Stonehenge in person, but in 2020, more people will be able to view the event than ever before. As Matador Network reports, the English Heritage organization will live stream the spectacle for the first time in the ancient landmark's history.

The first day of summer is a very important occasion at Stonehenge. When the Sun appears over the horizon on the solstice, it appears to line up perfectly with the massive stone structure. This has led some to believe that Stonehenge played an important role in druid solstice celebrations when it was erected between 3500 and 5000 years ago.

Under normal circumstances, thousands of people make a pilgrimage to the site at the end of June to witness the event. This year, English Heritage, which manages the landmark, is asking people to stay home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization hopes to make up for this by streaming the solstice at Stonehenge live on social media.

To watch the special sunrise live from home, head to English Heritage's Facebook page the morning of June 21 (or, if you're tuning in from the U.S., the evening of June 20). The sun rises at Stonehenge at approximately 4:52 a.m. local time, so check to see when that is in your area to watch the event live. The page will also stream sunset on Saturday, June 20, at 9:26 p.m. local time.

 https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/for-the-first-time-ever-you-can-watch-the-summer-solstice-at-stonehenge-via-livestream/ar-BB14bdPu

[CaaC (John)+]

Explorers allowed to take Titanic’s Marconi telegraph, cutting into the wreck for the first time

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For the first time in the 108 years since the Titanic sank to the bottom of the ocean, causing the deaths of more than 1,500 people, explorers are set to cut into the ship and remove a piece.

Their target is the wireless Marconi telegraph, one of the first of its kind, which the doomed ocean liner used to contact a nearby ship for aid.

A federal judge in Virginia approved the expedition Monday, calling it “a unique opportunity to recover an artefact that will contribute to the legacy left by the indelible loss of the Titanic.” 

Because of a backlog of personal messages, the wireless operators had ignored ice warnings from other ships. Banal good-wishes soon gave way to increasingly desperate calls for help. Operator Jack Phillips died after refusing to leave his flooded post.

“He was a brave man,” his fellow wireless operator told the New York Times a few days later. “I will never live to forget the work of Phillips for the last awful 15 minutes.”

The company R.M.S. Titanic (RMST) still must get a funding plan approved by the court, a prospect made more complicated by the covid-19 pandemic. It plans to launch the expedition this summer, using underwater robots to carefully detach the Marconi and its components from the ship. 

“If recovered, it is conceivable that it could be restored to operable condition,” they said in one filing. “Titanic’s radio — Titanic’s voice — could once again be heard, now and forever.”

The recovery project has been vociferously opposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose representatives argued in court that the Titanic, sunk off the coast of Newfoundland, should be respected as a grave rather than mined as a museum supply.

At its heart, the years-long legal dispute is an emotional one. Who can claim the Titanic? Should the public have the right to see as many of its treasures as possible, from the comfort of a Las Vegas casino or a Florida interactive museum? Or should the remains of the victims be left in peace, their effects were seen only by scientists underwater?

“Titanic has always been a singular case of passionate, strongly held opinions,” said maritime archaeologist James Delgado, who helped map the ship on a 2010 expedition. “For some, it’s a memorial, for some it’s a historic site, for some it’s where a family member died. For others, it’s an ultimate tourist destination, and for others, it’s a business opportunity. How you balance all of that is very difficult.”

Because of the intricacies of maritime law, the federal court in Norfolk has been tasked with striking that balance. But the Titanic is also a fulcrum for a broader battle over who controls the seas — companies and courts, or governments. 

It’s a fight that has gotten heated, and personal. RMST’s attorneys once compared a British archaeological group to the Taliban. One marine archaeologist working for the company, John Broadwater, quit the project just days before the ruling. Emails show former colleagues at NOAA refused to talk to him about Titanic once he joined.

“I think it would make a wonderful exhibit, but it's definitely a complicated situation,” Broadwater said in an interview.

The government position is that the Titanic site should be protected and preserved where it is, while the Marconi is “standard off-the-shelf” equipment of the time that has little value outside the ship.

“Just like a lion is much better appreciated in the wilds of the African savannahs than it is stuffed in a museum, so too does the Marconi apparatus best tell its story and share its value where it is,” the National Park Service’s Submerged Resources Center chief wrote to the court.

The company responds that NOAA is hardly in a position to act as the gatekeeper, having approved an expedition group last year that accidentally jostled the ship’s rail. It pledges to use underwater robots to carefully extract the Marconi, only if deemed safe.

“RMST is left to wonder why has NOAA gone to such great lengths to raise scores of questions about the competency, plans and equipment of a team that has actually led or participated in numerous successful expeditions to the Titanic, and the recovery of thousands of artefacts from the ship since 1987 when it does not ask the same questions of other rookie expeditioners with no such track record,” the company wrote in a recent filing. 

Moreover, it argued that the Titanic is rapidly deteriorating without any intervention; the ceiling of the room that holds the Marconi may well collapse soon.

“There are places where you can stick your finger through that rooftop,” oceanographer and RMST consultant David Gallo testified at one hearing.

Senior Judge Rebecca Beach Smith agreed, calling photographs of the deterioration “poignant.”

In the past thousand years, the basic principles of maritime law have not changed, and one is that whoever retrieves a wreck gets a reward. Where the wreckage is brought determines control.

It’s a rule meant to encourage clearing the sea of debris and restoring the property to rightful owners. Historic wrecks that are expected to languish underwater forever are an awkward fit. But the same principles still apply.

Within two years of the Titanic’s 1985 discovery by oceanographers, a Connecticut car salesman named George Tulloch had created RMST, made an expedition to the site and wrangled salvage rights by bringing a wine decanter into a Norfolk federal courtroom. The Virginia court became the arbiter of future exploration and recovery.

A salvor who declines to donate their winnings to the poor no longer risks “the curse and malediction of our mother the holy church,” as the law was written in the 1100s. But RMST is legally bound to act with public benefit in mind. The company cannot break up its collection of Titanic artefacts, and it needs permission from the court to touch or take anything off the ship. The only treasure the company can sell is coal (available online as an hourglass, snow globe or keyring).

RMST retrieved thousands of items from the field of debris around the ship — bronze whistles, leather luggage — and set up a touring exhibition. It advertised cruises to the wreck with Burt Reynolds and Buzz Aldrin.

Outside critics called it crass hucksterism; some at the company thought they were being too respectful. In a coup when Tulloch was celebrating Thanksgiving, board members changed the locks on his office, according to media reports at the time. The new leaders declared plans to scour the ship for $300 million in missing diamonds.

“We know there’s an awful lot of money under the water,” one shareholder told The Baltimore Sun.

Alarmed, the court brought in NOAA as a “friend of the court,” one that has viewed the company sceptically ever since.

“It is difficult to envision that, once out in the North Atlantic, contrary voices advocating caution (if any are allowed to be present) will be heeded or heard,” NOAA officials wrote recently.

The company was bought in bankruptcy in 2018; in a conversation several months ago, RMST attorney David Concannon readily called the former owners “dishonest hooligans” but said NOAA can’t recognize that the project is now in responsible hands. He and several others who quit in the coup have since returned. “They’re different,” he said. “They’re taking a measured, considered approach to this.”

Gallo himself testified in court that he used to consider the company’s work “grave robbery” but has since changed his views.

“It wasn’t until I wandered into one of the exhibits with a friend of mine, we wandered in, and it just transformed my feeling about the whole episode, the whole Titanic issue,” he said. “I was able to watch families, children, and approach these artefacts from the front door. … It was an experience for them.”

An international treaty giving the government control over the Titanic was tucked into a 2018 spending bill but has never been ratified, leaving NOAA and RMST at odds over whether the company needs permission to visit the site, and what power the agency has in the court case.

NOAA, RMST argues, wants to wrest control of shipwrecks away from courts and companies.

“NOAA seeks to jettison the law of the sea, developed over centuries,” the company’s lawyers wrote.

The judge sidestepped that question in her ruling.

“The Marconi device has significant historical, educational, scientific, and cultural value,” she wrote.

 

 

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by CaaC (John)

[Stan]

I am greatly satisfied with stuff like this 

 

[CaaC (John)+]

Red Hugh: Spanish dig for the bones of 'Fighting Prince of Donegal'

Are the bones of a historic Irish leader entombed below the foundations of a bank in northern Spain?

Archaeologists have dug up a street in the city of Valladolid in a bid to find the remains of a 16th Century Irish chieftain known as Red Hugh.

Red Hugh O'Donnell died in Spain in 1602 while on a mission to ask the Spanish king for military assistance to drive the English army out of Ireland.

He was buried in Valladolid's Chapel of Wonders - the same church where Christopher Columbus was interred almost a century earlier.

The remains of Columbus were later moved to Seville and the ruined building eventually disappeared from view.

However, archaeologists believe they have unearthed the walls of the chapel and are "close" to discovering the remains of Red Hugh.

FULL REPORT

 

[CaaC (John)+]

Roman city revealed in ‘astonishing level of detail’ by radar technology

Archaeologists used ground-penetrating radar technology (GPR) to map the entire Roman city Falerii Novi dating back to the 3rd Century.

Archaeologists have used advanced technology to map out an entire ancient Roman city buried deep underground without any digging.

For the first time, archaeologists at the University of Cambridge and Ghent University in Belgium have used ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to create a complete and detailed map of the Roman city of Falerii Novi in Italy.

The team discovered a baths complex, a market, a temple and a public monument, as well as the city’s sprawling network of water pipes dating back to the 3rd Century.

Archaeologists believe GPR technology could revolutionise our understanding of ancient settlements, making it possible to explore larger areas in higher resolution, including those that cannot be excavated because they are trapped under modern structures.

Professor Martin Millett, from the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Classics, said: “The astonishing level of detail which we have achieved at Falerii Novi, and the surprising features that GPR has revealed, suggest that this type of survey could transform the way archaeologists investigate urban sites as total entities.”

A map of the Falerii Novi site as it would have looked in the 3rd Century

Working in a similar fashion to regular radar, GPR technology bounces radio waves off objects and uses the “echo” to build up a picture at different depths.

While traditionally archaeologists would dig in the ground to unearth new discoveries, the team surveyed 30.5 hectares (75 acres) within the city’s walls – just under half the size of Pompeii – by towing GPR instruments behind a quad bike.

The theatre at Falerii Novi visualised via GPR

Located 50km (31 miles) north of Rome and first occupied in 241 BC, Falerii Novi survived into the medieval period until around 700 AD.

Prof Millett and his colleagues have already used GPR to survey Interamna Lirenas in Italy, and, on a lesser scale, Alborough in North Yorkshire, but they now hope to see it deployed on far bigger sites.

Quad with GPR array and researcher Lieven Verdonck on Falerii site

“It is exciting and now realistic to imagine GPR being used to survey a major city such as Miletus in Turkey, Nicopolis in Greece or Cyrene in Libya,” said Prof Millett.

“We still have so much to learn about Roman urban life and this technology should open up unprecedented opportunities for decades to come.”

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/roman-city-revealed-in-astonishing-level-of-detail-by-radar-technology/

[CaaC (John)+]

Revealed: the last supper of an armoured dinosaur

You might find this one hard to stomach. Scientists have analysed the fossilised guts of a 110-million-year-old dinosaur, revealing the beast’s final meal.

The football-sized stomach forms part of an incredibly well-preserved fossil of a stocky, heavily-armoured dinosaur known as a nodosaur, discovered in a Canadian mine in 2011.

After eating its final meal, the dinosaur, Borealopelta markmitchelli, died and got washed out to sea – perhaps during a flood. It sank to the seafloor and was quickly entombed by mud, where it remained for millions of years.

By the time it was uncovered, its seafloor burial site had become part of a mine in Alberta.

“The finding of the actual preserved stomach contents from a dinosaur is extraordinarily rare,” said team member Dr Jim Basinger at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, “and this stomach recovered from the mummified nodosaur … is by far the best-preserved dinosaur stomach ever found to date.”

It appears that this dinosaur had a particular fondness for ferns.

“When we examined thin sections of the stomach contents under a microscope, we were shocked to see beautifully preserved and concentrated plant material,” said team co-leader Dr David Greenwood at Canada’s Brandon University.

“The last meal of our dinosaur was mostly fern leaves – 88 per cent chewed leaf material and seven per cent stems and twigs.”

This is the first definitive evidence of the diet of a large, plant-eating dinosaur. This dino seems to have been a fussy eater, choosing to eat particular ferns over others, and turning up its nose at cycad and conifer leaves, which would have been common in its Early Cretaceous habitat.

Its stomach also contains charcoal from burnt plant fragments, indicating that the animal was grazing in a burnt landscape, perhaps taking advantage of the first flush of ferns following a wildfire.

Now, researchers will continue to analyse Borealopelta’s fossil, which promises to offer many more insights into the dinosaur’s environment and behaviour.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/revealed-the-last-supper-of-an-armoured-dinosaur/

 

[CaaC (John)+]

DNA study reveals Ireland's age of 'god-kings'

DNA has been used to confirm the existence of an elite social class in the Stone Age inhabitants of Ireland.

It's one of the earliest examples of such a hierarchy among human societies.

A key piece of evidence comes from an adult male buried at the 5,000-year-old Newgrange monument; his DNA revealed that his parents were first-degree relatives, possibly brother and sister.

He was one member of an extended "clan" that was buried at impressive stone monuments across Ireland.

The Irish elites were established during Neolithic times when people first started farming. The researchers extracted DNA from 44 ancient individuals from across Ireland and sequenced their genomes (the full complement of genetic material contained in the nuclei of cells).

Evidence of incestuous unions like that found at Newgrange are rare in human history; they are taboo for inter-linked biological and cultural reasons. Where they do occur, it is often within royal dynasties that have been granted divine status.

FULL REPORT

[CaaC (John)+]

Stonehenge: Neolithic monument found near a sacred site

Archaeologists have discovered a ring of prehistoric shafts, dug thousands of years ago near Stonehenge.

Fieldwork has revealed evidence of a 1.2 mile (2km) wide circle of large shafts measuring more than 10m in diameter and 5m in depth.

They surround the ancient settlement of Durrington Walls, two miles (3km) from Stonehenge.

Tests suggest the groundworks are Neolithic and were excavated more than 4,500 years ago.

Experts believe the 20 or more shafts may have served as a boundary to a sacred area connected to the henge.

A team of academics from the universities of St Andrews, Birmingham, Warwick, Glasgow and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David worked on the project.

Dr Richard Bates, from St Andrews' School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said: "Remote sensing and careful sampling is giving us an insight to the past that shows an even more complex society than we could ever imagine.

"Clearly sophisticated practices demonstrate that the people were so in tune with natural events to an extent that we can barely conceive in the modern world."

His colleague Tim Kinnaird said sediments from the shafts that were tested "contain a rich and fascinating archive of previously unknown environmental information".

He said studying the finds allowed archaeologists to "write detailed narratives of the Stonehenge landscape for the last 4,000 years".

Dr Nick Snashall, National Trust archaeologist for the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, hailed the "astonishing discovery".

She said: "As the place where the builders of Stonehenge lived and feasted Durrington Walls is key to unlocking the story of the wider Stonehenge landscape, and this astonishing discovery offers us new insights into the lives and beliefs of our Neolithic ancestors.

"The Hidden Landscapes team have combined cutting-edge, archaeological fieldwork with good old-fashioned detective work to reveal this extraordinary discovery and write a whole new chapter in the story of the Stonehenge landscape."

The announcement of the discovery comes after the Summer Solstice, which took place online this year as the annual gathering at Stonehenge was cancelled due to coronavirus.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-53132567

[Stan]

Ha, drove past that literally about half an hour ago.

I remember seeing Stonehenge on the way to Cornwall but I must have been about 5 or 6 so it's sketchy. I think in my mind it was massive. Seeing it today was a bit surreal given its history and reputation. 

[CaaC (John)+]

First Viking ship excavation in a century begins in Norway

Archaeologists in Norway have begun the first excavation of a Viking ship in more than a century.

The vessel was discovered in a burial site in Gjellestad in the south-east of the country two years ago.

Although it is believed to be in poor condition, the find remains significant as only three other well-preserved Viking ships have been discovered in the country.

The excavation is expected to last five months.

How a climate crisis helped shape Norse mythology

Knut Paasche, an expert from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research said that only part of the ship's timber appeared to have been preserved, but added that modern techniques could allow archaeologists to discover its original shape.

The ship, which is about 20m (65ft) long, was discovered by experts using ground-penetrating radar in 2018.

A large number of burial mounds and longhouses were also found at the same time.

"The Gjellestad ship is a discovery of outstanding national and international importance," Norway's Culture Minister Sveinung Rotevatn said, according to the AFP news agency.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53204948

[CaaC (John)+]

Archaeologists in Turkey Have Uncovered a Mysterious Ancient Kingdom Lost in History

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It was said that all he touched turned to gold. But destiny eventually caught up with the legendary King Midas, and a long-lost chronicle of his ancient downfall appears to have literally surfaced in Turkey.

Last year, archaeologists were investigating an ancient mound site in central Turkey called Türkmen-Karahöyük. The greater region, the Konya Plain, abounds with lost metropolises, but even so, researchers couldn't have been prepared for what they were about to find.

A local farmer told the group that a nearby canal, recently dredged, revealed the existence of a large strange stone, marked with some kind of unknown inscription.

"We could see it still sticking out of the water, so we jumped right down into the canal – up to our waists wading around," said archaeologist James Osborne from the University of Chicago earlier this year.

"Right away it was clear it was ancient, and we recognised the script it was written in: Luwian, the language used in the Bronze and Iron Ages in the area."

With the aid of translators, the researchers found that the hieroglyphs on this ancient stone block – called a stele – boasted of a military victory. And not just any military victory, but the defeat of Phrygia, a kingdom of Anatolia that existed roughly 3,000 years ago.

The royal house of Phrygia was ruled by a few different men called Midas, but the dating of the stele, based on linguistic analysis, suggests the block's hieroglyphics could be referring to the King Midas – he of the famous 'golden touch' myth.

The stone markings also contained a special hieroglyphic symbolising that the victory message came from another king, a man called Hartapu. The hieroglyphs suggest Midas was captured by Hartapu's forces.

"The storm gods delivered the [opposing] kings to his majesty," the stone reads.

What's significant about this is that almost nothing is known about King Hartapu, nor about the kingdom he ruled. Nonetheless, the stele suggests the giant mound of Türkmen-Karahöyük may have been Hartapu's capital city, spanning some 300 acres in its heyday, the heart of the ancient conquest of Midas and Phrygia.

"We had no idea about this kingdom," Osborne said. "In a flash, we had profound new information on the Iron Age Middle East."

There's a lot more digging to be done in this ongoing archaeological project, and the findings so far should be considered preliminary for now. The international team is eager to revisit the site this year, to find out whatever more we can about this kingdom seemingly lost in history.

"Inside this mound are going to be palaces, monuments, houses," Osborne said. "This stele was a marvellous, incredibly lucky find - but it's just the beginning."

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/archaeologists-in-turkey-have-uncovered-a-mysterious-ancient-kingdom-lost-in-history/ar-BB165GCt

[CaaC (John)+]

Dinosaur ancestors 'may have been tiny'

Dinosaurs are often thought of as giant creatures, but new research adds to evidence they started out small.

The evidence comes from a newly described fossil relative found on Madagascar that lived some 237 million years ago and stood just 10cm tall.

The specimen may also help clarify the currently murky origins of pterosaurs, the winged reptiles that ruled the skies at the time of the dinosaurs.

The work appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"There's a general perception of dinosaurs as being giants," said co-author Christian Kammerer, from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

"But this new animal is very close to the divergence of dinosaurs and pterosaurs, and it's shockingly small."

The specimen, named Kongonaphon kely, or "tiny bug slayer", was found in 1998 in Madagascar by a team of palaeontologists, led by John Flynn from the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Dinosaurs and pterosaurs both belong to the group Ornithodira. Their origins, however, are poorly known, as few specimens from near the root of this lineage have been found.

Kongonaphon is not the first small fossil animal known near the root of the ornithodiran family tree but, previously, such specimens were considered isolated exceptions.

In general, scientists thought body size remained similar among the first archosaurs - the larger reptile group that includes birds, crocodilians, non-avian dinosaurs, and pterosaurs - and the earliest ornithodirans.

They are then thought to have increased to gigantic proportions in the dinosaur lineage.

"Analysing changes in body size throughout archosaur evolution, we found compelling evidence that it decreased sharply early in the history of the dinosaur-pterosaur lineage," Dr Kammerer said.

Wear on the teeth of Kongonaphon suggests it ate insects. A shift to this kind of diet, which is associated with small body size, may have helped early ornithodirans survive by occupying a niche different from their mostly meat-eating contemporaneous relatives.

The work also suggests that fuzz over the skin, ranging from simple filaments to feathers, known on both the dinosaur and pterosaur sides of the ornithodiran tree, may have originated for regulating body temperature in this small-bodied ancestor.

That's because heat retention in small bodies is difficult, and the mid-late Triassic Period, when the animal lived, was a time of climatic extremes. Researchers think there were sharp shifts in temperature between hot days and cold nights.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53319635