Tag: ancient history

Hip bone found in cave in France may represent a previously unknown lineage of Homo sapiens

A bone found in a cave by an international team of anthropologists in France may represent a previously unknown lineage of Homo sapiens. The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The Grotte du Renne is a cave in France; it has been the focus of archaeological research for several decades. Such research has shown that there are layers of historical relevance in the cave, with deeper layers representing the time period when the cave was occupied by Neanderthals and higher layers representing the time period when anatomically modern humans (AMHs) occupied the cave.

In between those layers is another that represents the time period when the two hominids may have co-existed. Stone tools found in the layer have been ascribed to an early Châtelperronian techno-cultural complex, though scholars have not been able to agree on whether they were made by Neanderthals, AMH or both. In this new effort, the research team took a new look at a bone that was excavated from the cave decades ago—a hip bone called an ilium.

The researchers found that the bone was from a newborn baby. They also believed that it was not Neanderthal. By comparing it with other Neanderthal bones and against 32 modern baby bones, they found that it did not conform to either species. Its shape was different from Neanderthal and slightly different from AMH. They noted that the odd shape fell outside the bounds of what would be considered normal variation in humans. That, they concluded, suggests the bone represents a previously unknown lineage of Homo sapiens with a morphology that is slightly different from AMH.

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Luzio, who lived in São Paulo 10,000 years ago, was Amerindian like Indigenous people now, DNA reveals

An article published on July 31 in Nature Ecology & Evolution reveals that Luzio, the oldest human skeleton found in São Paulo state (Brazil), was a descendant of the ancestral population that settled the Americas at least 16,000 years ago and gave rise to all present-day Indigenous peoples, such as the Tupi.

Based on the largest set of Brazilian archaeological genomic data, the study reported in the article also offers an explanation for the disappearance of the oldest coastal communities, the residents of which built the icons of Brazilian archaeology known as “sambaquis,” huge mounds of shells and fishbones used as dwellings, cemeteries and territorial boundaries. Archaeologists often refer to these monuments as shell mounds or kitchen middens.

“After the Andean civilizations, the Atlantic coast sambaqui builders were the human phenomenon with the highest demographic density in pre-colonial South America. They were the ‘kings of the coast’ for thousands and thousands of years. They vanished suddenly about 2,000 years ago,” said André Menezes Strauss, an archaeologist at the University of São Paulo’s Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (MAE-USP) and principal investigator for the study.

The authors analyzed the genomes of 34 samples from four different areas of Brazil’s coast. The fossils were at least 10,000 years old. They came from sambaquis and other parts of eight sites (Cabeçuda, Capelinha, Cubatão, Limão, Jabuticabeira II, Palmeiras Xingu, Pedra do Alexandre and Vau Una).

This material included Luzio, São Paulo’s oldest skeleton, found in the Capelinha river midden in the Ribeira de Iguape valley by a group led by Levy Figuti, a professor at MAE-USP. The morphology of its skull is similar to that of Luzia, the oldest human fossil found to date in South America, dating from about 13,000 years ago. The researchers thought it might have belonged to a biologically different population from present-day Amerindians, who settled in what is now Brazil some 14,000 years ago, but it turns out they were mistaken.

“Genetic analysis showed Luzio to be an Amerindian, like the Tupi, Quechua or Cherokee. That doesn’t mean they’re all the same, but from a global perspective, they all derive from a single migratory wave that arrived in the Americas not more than 16,000 years ago. If there was another population here 30,000 years ago, it didn’t leave descendants among these groups,” Strauss said.

Luzio’s DNA also answered another question. River middens are different from coastal ones, so the find cannot be considered a direct ancestor of the huge classical sambaquis that appeared later. This discovery suggests there were two distinct migrations—into the hinterland and along the coast.

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Two Megalithic Bronze Age Dolmens Excavated in Southern Spain

La Lentejuela Teba necropolis, near Malaga in southern Spain, captivated historians and archaeologists when it was first discovered in 2005. Dating back to 4,000 BC, this ancient burial site was later reused in the Bronze Age between 2200 BC and 800 BC.

Since it was first unearthed, 13 stone structures and over 100 tombs have revealed a wealth of artifacts, including pottery, jewelry and tools, providing valuable insights into the burial practices and daily lives of its inhabitants.

But now, a team of researchers from the University of Cadiz (UCA) has been working to find out more about two megalithic Bronze Age dolmens discovered at the same site. Having been originally built over 6,000 years ago, the pair of ancient burial portals were rebuilt in the Bronze Age and used to enshrine the bodies of societal elites.

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Swiss Scientists Identify Bronze Age Iron Arrowhead Made from a Meteorite!

A team of scientists recently completed a study of prehistoric metal artifacts collected in Switzerland over the past couple of centuries, with a very clear purpose in mind. They were looking to see if any of these ancient artifacts might have been made from metal salvaged from meteorites, which have been hitting Earth for billions of years . Much to their delight, the Swiss researchers were able to identify one such object: a small, rusted Bronze Age iron arrowhead with a chemical and mineral composition that was undoubtedly not of earthly origin.

As a part of their search process, the team of Swiss scientists led by geologist Beda Hofmann from the National History Museum of Bern concentrated on pre-Iron Age artifacts taken from various sites close to Switzerland’s Lake of Biel region. The one iron arrowhead made from meteoritic metal they did find was excavated from a Late Bronze Age (900 to 700 BC) settlement known as Mörigen, from where it had been unearthed all the way back in the 19th century.

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Is 8,000-year-old Damaidi Rock Art the Origin of Chinese Writing?

The Chinese writing system is by far one of the most complex in the world, and its origins are truly ancient. In fact, ​​Chinese characters are the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world, a fact that alone makes them very, very special. It is thus only natural to ask the question: where did these characters originate? A system of writing that is so complex and unique surely has to have a special place of provenance. Some scholars believe that the characters first came to existence amongst the Damaidi petroglyphs – ancient drawings carved in stone that reach far, far back in time. Are they the key to the riddle?

Damaidi rock art, also known as the Damaidi petroglyphs, are a collection of stunning ancient rock carvings found in China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. They are situated close to the village of Damaidi, which is set amid the Weining Mountains on the north bend of the famed Yellow River . These carvings have been dated to between 6,000 and 8,000 years before present and depict a wide variety of images, including animals, humans, and abstract symbols . The images are carved into local cliffs, and in total there are 3,172 sets of early Chinese petroglyphs , all of which feature 8,453 individual figures. These are stunning numbers, indicating that the site was filled with art over many generations.

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Bronze age ritual cemetery discovered at planned spaceport in Shetland

A bronze age ritual cremation cemetery has been discovered by archaeologists working at a planned spaceport in Scotland.

The discovery was made at the SaxaVord spaceport site on the Lamba Ness peninsula in Unst, Shetland while foundation work was carried out.

It is believed the remains are from a bronze age ritual cremation cemetery after pits, large boulders and cremations were uncovered alongside a quartz setting, which is generally associated with prehistoric burial tombs.

Excavation is still in its early stages, but archaeologists believe the remains date to between 2200-1800 BC.

The discovery will offer archaeologists a fresh opportunity to study prehistoric inhabitants of Shetland, and will not hold back the development of the spaceport.

Shetland’s regional archaeologist, Dr Val Hunter, said: “I’ve always suspected that some of Shetland’s rings of boulders and low stones found could in fact be bronze age cremation cemeteries, so it is hugely exciting to be proved right.

“The bronze age is perhaps the period of Shetland’s past which we know least about and this is a wonderful opportunity to change that. With the modern techniques available now, we can potentially find out far more about the individuals who lived and died here than we could have discovered even 20 years ago.

“Hats off to the archaeologists from AOC who spotted this in the watching brief.”

The discovery was welcomed by SaxaVord chief executive Frank Strang, who said the spaceport would work with archaeologists in their excavation.

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Placement of ancient hidden lamps, skulls in cave in Israel suggests Roman-era practice of necromancy

A pair of archaeologists, one with the Israel Antiquities Authority, the other from Bar-Ilan University, has found evidence of Roman-era necromancy practices in a cave in Israel. In their study, reported in the journal Harvard Theological Review, Eitan Klein and Boaz Zissu analyzed artifacts excavated from the Te’omim Cave over the past 14 years.

The Te’omim Cave has played a role in the history of what is now the Jerusalem hills region west of the famous city. During the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, for example, it served as a hideout for Jewish rebels. In this new effort, the researchers studied artifacts that multiple groups have removed from the cave since 2009 as part of a collaboration between several entities in Israel. Such artifacts have been dated to approximately 2,000 years ago, during the Roman era.

Researchers have found more than 120 oil lamps, various weapons, vessels, coins and even three human skulls. Many of the artifacts were found wedged into tight spaces. In this new effort, the researchers analyzed the artifacts and the places where they were found and hypothesize that at least some of them were used in attempts to speak with dead people, a practice called necromancy.

Necromancy is the practice of enchanted conjuring, involving attempts to communicate with the dead by calling forth their spirits or visualizations of them for the purpose of divination or revealing future events, or to discover secrets. It is also generally associated with black magic or witchcraft. Klein and Zissu suggest that the placement of many of the lamps, for example, is indicative of behavior associated with necromancy—mostly because of the presence of the skulls.

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When Did Humans Start Settling Down?

Twelve thousand years ago, long before the beginning of recorded history, a group of perhaps 200 people lived in a small village by a stream flowing into the Sea of Galilee, in what today is northern Israel. The villagers hunted gazelle and hares, fished for carp, built stone houses, and buried their dead in a cemetery next to their homes. When I hiked to the site early one morning, it was easy to imagine them: A few figures setting off with nets to the lakeshore, others walking toward the hills with bows and arrows to look for game, and more down by the riverbank, spinning thread or crushing barley, shooing children out of the way—a community waking up together and getting to work, unaware of their position at the dawn of a new age.

I came to the village with Leore Grosman, an archaeologist from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. We turned up a dirt track off the two-lane road that circles the Sea of Galilee. On the far shore, across five miles of placid water, lights in the city of Tiberias were blinking off. The sun wasn’t quite up, but the caffeine was kicking in. Grosman lit a cigarette and told me about herself in a gravelly voice. She started out studying math, then moved to Egyptology. She loved hieroglyphics. “But it’s a lot of sitting in libraries, and it’s a matter of personality,” she said. “I need to be outside.” She began digging here in 2010 with a feeling that the site, known as Nahal Ein Gev II, had something to say about a great change in the human story. She has returned each summer since.

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2,000-Year-Old Unknown Kushan Language Is Finally Deciphered

Since the 1960s, archaeologists in Central Asia have found rocks carved with a mysterious unknown language. Now, a team from the University of Cologne has deciphered the unknown script, revealing it emerged among traders on the Silk Road.

Founded by the Kushan tribe, the Kushan Empire flourished from the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. Spanning Central Asia and parts of South Asia, Kushan religion was influenced by Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and Hinduism, which all penetrated Kushan culture via trade along the Silk Road .

Cologne University was founded in 1388 AD by Pope Urban VI, focusing on theology, philosophy and linguistics. Now, keeping in alignment with the institute’s original traditions, a research team from the University’s Department of Linguistics has decoded 60% of the ancient Kushan writing system known as the “Unknown Kushan Script.”

According to UNESCO, both Sanskrit and Prakrit languages pre-date the Kushan Empire, and Bactrian and Sogdian were spoken by the merchants who engaged in Silk Road trading across Central Asia. However, while much is known about these language systems, until now there remained much to be discovered about the languages of the Kushan Empire.

The so-called “unknown Kushan script” was first identified by archaeologists in the 1960s, but now, Professor’s Svenja Bonmann, Jakob Halfmann and Natalie Korobzow have examined sections of the unknown script found on cave walls, clay pots and bowls in several Central Asian countries.

The team initially announced their “partial” decipherment of the language on 1 March 2023, during an online conference organized by the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan . Now, a new study about their work has been published in the journal Transactions of the Philological Society under the title “A Partial Decipherment of the Unknown Kushan Script.”

According to the new paper, the team have successfully deciphered about 60% of the characters of the unknown Kushan language script that was widely used in Central Asia between about 200 BC and 700 AD.

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Pendants made from giant sloths suggest earlier arrival of people in the Americas

New research suggests humans lived in South America at the same time as now extinct giant sloths, bolstering evidence that people arrived in the Americas earlier than once thought.

Scientists analyzed triangular and teardrop-shaped pendants made of bony material from the sloths. They concluded that the carved and polished shapes and drilled holes were the work of deliberate craftsmanship.

Dating of the ornaments and sediment at the Brazil site where they were found point to an age of 25,000 to 27,000 years ago, the researchers reported. That’s several thousand years before some earlier theories had suggested the first people arrived in the Americas, after migrating out from Africa and then Eurasia.

“We now have good evidence — together with other sites from South and North America — that we have to rethink our ideas about the migration of humans to the Americas,” said Mirian Liza Alves Forancelli Pacheco, a study co-author and archaeologist at the Federal University of Sao Carlos in Brazil.

In the past decade, other research has challenged the conventional wisdom that people didn’t reach the Americas until a few thousand years before rising sea levels covered the Bering land bridge between Russia and Alaska, perhaps around 15,000 years ago.

The ornaments were discovered about 30 years ago at a rock shelter called Santa Elina in central Brazil. The new study is the first to analyze them extensively and rule out the possibility that humans had found and carved them thousands of years after the animals perished.

The team of researchers from Brazil, France and the United States said their analysis shows this handiwork was done within days to a few years after the animals had died, and before the materials had fossilized. The researchers also ruled out natural abrasion and other things that might explain the shapes and holes. They reported their findings Wednesday in Britain’s Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal.

“We think they were personal objects, possibly for personal adornment,” said Thais Rabito Pansani, a co-author and paleontologist at the Federal University of Sao Carlos in Brazil.

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