Tag: ancient history

Could these marks on a cave wall be oldest-known Neanderthal “finger paintings”?

Archaeologists have concluded that a series of engravings discovered on a cave wall in France were made by Neanderthals using their fingers, some 57,000 years ago. They could be the oldest such marks yet found and further evidence that Neanderthals’ behavior and activities were far more complex and diverse than previously believed, according to a new paper published in the journal PLoS ONE.

As Kiona Smith previously reported for Ars, evidence that Neanderthals could think symbolically, create art, and plan a project has been piling up for the last several years. For instance, about 50,000 years ago, Neanderthals in France spun plant fibers into thread. In Central Italy, between 40,000 and 55,000 years ago, Neanderthals used birch tar to hold their hafted stone tools in place, which required a lot of planning and complex preparation. In 2016, we reported on archaeologists’ announcement that a Neanderthal group wrested hundreds of stalagmites from the floor of a cave inside Bruniquel Cave in Southern France to build elaborate circular structures, their work illuminated only by firelight.

Archaeologists have also found several pieces of bone and rock from the Middle Paleolithic—the time when Neanderthals had most of Europe to themselves—carved with geometric patterns like cross-hatches, zigzags, parallel lines, and circles. That might mean that the ability to use symbols didn’t originate with modern humans.

For instance, in 2018, archaeologists claimed that uneven lines observed in the soft, chalky outer layer of a small, thin flint flake were a deliberate marking. It was found in Kiik-Koba Cave, which overlooks the Zuya River in the Crimean Mountains. The engraved flake came from a layer between 35,486 and 37,026 years old. Archaeologists found the skeleton of a Neanderthal infant in the same layer, leaving no doubt about who lived at Kiik-Koba when the stone tools were made and used.

In 2021, archaeologists announced they’d found a geometric design akin to “offset chevrons” carved into the second phalanx, or toe bone, of a giant deer in a cave now called Einhornhohle in the Harz Mountains of Northern Germany. The carver was almost certainly a Neanderthal, based on the bone’s radiocarbon-dated age, because no one but Neanderthals lived in Europe until around 45,000 years ago.

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Study reveals that ravens were attracted to humans’ food more than 30,000 years ago

University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment team investigates human-raven relationships

Wild animals entered into diverse relationships with humans long before the first settlements were established in the Neolithic period around 10,000 years ago. An international study by researchers from the Universities of Tübingen, Helsinki and Aarhus presents new evidence that ravens helped themselves to people’s scraps and picked over mammoth carcasses left by human hunters during the Pavlovian culture more than 30,000 years ago in what is now Moravia in the Czech Republic.

The large number of raven bones found at the sites suggests that the birds in turn were a supplementary source of food, and may have become important in the culture and worldview of these people.

The study’s lead authors are Dr. Chris Baumann, who currently conducts research at the Universities of Tübingen and Helsinki, and Dr. Shumon T. Hussain from Aarhus University, an expert in the deep history of human-animal interaction, along with Professor Hervé Bocherens of the University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment. The study has been published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

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Dutch unveil 4,000-year-old ‘Stonehenge’-like discovery

Dutch archaeologists on Wednesday revealed an around 4,000-year-old religious site—dubbed the “Stonehenge of the Netherlands” in the country’s media—which included a burial mound serving as a solar calendar.

The burial mound, which contained the remains of some 60 men, women and children had several passages through which the sun directly shone on the longest and shortest days of the year.

“What a spectacular archaeological discovery! Archaeologists have found a 4,000-year-old religious sanctuary on an industrial site,” the town of Tiel said on its Facebook page.

“This is the first time a site like this has been discovered in the Netherlands,” it added in a statement.

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Neanderthal adhesives were made through a complex synthesis process

As Homo sapiens, we often consider ourselves to be the most intelligent hominins. But that doesn’t mean our species was the first to discover everything; it appears that Neanderthals found a way to manufacture synthetics long before we ever did.

Neanderthal tools might look relatively simple, but new research shows that Homo neanderthalensis devised a method of generating a glue derived from birch tar to hold them together about  200,000 years ago—and it was tough. This ancient superglue made bone and stone adhere to wood, was waterproof, and didn’t decompose. The tar was also used a hundred thousand years before modern humans came up with anything synthetic.

A transformation

After studying ancient tools that carry residue from this glue, a team of researchers from the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and other institutions in Germany found evidence that this glue wasn’t just the original tar; it had been transformed in some way. This raises the question of what was involved in that transformation.

To see how Neanderthals could have converted birch tar into glue, the research team tried several different processing methods. Any suspicion that the tar came directly from birch trees didn’t hold up because birch trees do not secrete anything that worked as an adhesive. So what kind of processing was needed?

Each technique that was tested used only materials that Neanderthals would have been able to access. Condensation methods, which involve burning birch bark on cobblestones so the tar can condense on the stones, were the simplest techniques used—allowing bark to burn above ground doesn’t really involve much thought beyond lighting a fire.

The other methods involved a recipe where the bark was not actually burned but heated after being placed underground. Two of these methods involved burying rolls of bark in embers that would heat them and produce tar. The third method would distill the tar. Because there were no ceramics during the Stone Age, sediment was shaped into upper and lower structures to hold the bark, which was then heated by fire. Distilled tar would slowly drip from the upper structure into the lower one.

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Huge Lost Maya City Has Emerged From the Jungle in Mexico

Mexican archaeologists harnessed the potential of LiDAR drones to undertake an extensive survey of the Yucatan Peninsula, yielding the remarkable discovery of a once-forgotten city. This extraordinary find includes pyramids, a ball court and sacred spaces distinguished by the presence of meticulously crafted stone columns.

Mexico’s National Institute for Anthropology and History ( INAH) has just announced that a team of archaeologists have identified a jungle-locked, ancient Maya city. Discovered deep in southern Mexico, the previously unknown city comprises large pyramids, stone columns, three plazas with “imposing buildings” and other sacred stone structures arranged in concentric circles.

INAH said the city is located in the state of Campeche, in the Balamku Ecological Reserve on the country’s Yucatan Peninsula . Archaeologists have named this lost Maya city in Mexico Ocomtun, which in the Yucatec Maya language means “stone column.” Speculatively, INAH said the city would have been an important Maya center for the entirety of the peninsula’s central lowland region, between 250 and 1000 AD.

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Ancient Egyptian followers of a deity called Bes may have used hallucinogens

An ancient Egyptian vase in the shape of the deity Bes showed traces of chemical plant compounds known to produce hallucinations, according to a recent preprint posted to Research Square. The authors suggest that members of the cult of Bes may have consumed a special cocktail containing the compounds to induce altered states of consciousness.

There is ample evidence that humans in many cultures throughout history used various hallucinogenic substances in religious ceremonies or shamanic rituals. That includes not just ancient Egypt but also ancient Greek, Vedic, Maya, Inca, and Aztec cultures. The Urarina people who live in the Peruvian Amazon Basin still use a psychoactive brew called ayahuasca in their rituals, and Westerners seeking their own brand of enlightenment have also been known to participate.

Lacing the beer served at their feasts with hallucinogens may have helped an ancient Peruvian people known as the Wari forge political alliances and expand their empire, according to a 2022 study. As previously reported, the use of hallucinogens, particularly a substance derived from the seeds of the vilca tree, was common in the region during the so-called Middle Horizon period, when the Wari empire thrived.

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Polynesians discovered Antarctica over 1,300 years ago

A review of literary and oral history suggests Polynesians, and not Europeans, were the first to explore Antarctic waters and possibly even spot the frozen continent itself.

European explorers are typically credited for discovering Antarctica 200 years ago, but new research reminds us of a neglected account in which Polynesians are described as sailing through Antarctic waters in the 7th century CE.

This may be news to many people, but it’s “a known narrative,” as Priscilla Wehi, the lead researcher on the new study and a conservation biologist at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research. That Polynesians may have visited Antarctic waters so long ago will hardly be a revelation to the Indigenous Māori of New Zealand, as their legends make note of this account.

Indeed, connections between Indigenous peoples and Antarctica “remain poorly documented and acknowledged in the research literature,” as the scientists write in their study, adding that the new “paper begins to fill this gap.”

To that end, the team, which included researchers from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu (a group representing the Māori people of the southern islands of New Zealand), analyzed literary accounts, oral history, and also representations made on carvings and weavings, to “construct a richer and more inclusive picture of Antarctica’s relationship with humanity,” as Wehi explained in an press release. In so doing, the team sought to build a “platform on which much wider conversations about New Zealand relationships with Antarctica can be furthered,” she added.

A Russian expedition from 1820 is conventionally credited for being the first to spot Antarctica, but Indigenous narratives describe another story, in which Polynesian chief Hui Te Rangiora and his crew, sailing on the vessel Te Ivi o Atea, journeyed through Antarctic waters some 1,320 years ago. The ship is described as venturing a long way south, and by doing so, its crew were “likely the first humans to set eyes on Antarctic waters and perhaps the continent,” according to the paper.

Indigenous legends make note of a “frozen sea” and a “dark place not seen by the Sun.” Hui Te Rangiora called this part of the southern ocean Tai-uka-a-pia, which means “sea foaming like arrowroot,” in which he was likely comparing powdered white arrowroot to icebergs. Incredibly, Te Ivi o Atea may have ventured as far south as the Ross Ice Shelf.

Māori carvings and weavings likewise make note of this history and the cultural connection to Antarctica, including inscriptions of navigational and astronomical knowledge. One carved post represents Tamarereti, a legendary Māori warrior, as being the “protector of the southern oceans” as he “stands on the southernmost tip of the South Island of New Zealand at Bluff,” as Wehi explained in the release. To which she added: “Ngāi Tahu, the largest tribal group in the South Island, and other tribal groups or iwi also cherish other oral repositories of knowledge in relation to these early explorers and voyagers.”

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Oldest Signs of Human Ancestors’ Trek to Australia Found in Laotian Cave

In the bowels of a Laotian cave, illuminated by faint sunlight and bright lamps, scientists have unearthed the earliest known evidence of our human ancestors making their way through mainland Southeast Asia en route to Australia some 86,000 years ago.

Any trace of human remains is a delight for archaeologists – but none more so when they dust off a discovery, date it, and realize it could push back timelines of early human migration in an area by more than ten thousand years.

The international team of researchers behind this new discovery dug deeper than others had gone before in a karst cave in northern Laos, unearthing a skull fragment with delicate features, and the shard of a leg bone.

They estimate the two human fossils are between 86,000 and 68,000 years old, by using five different dating techniques to reconstruct the timeline of the cave site in which early humans sheltered on their journeys southward.

Tam Pà Ling Cave, where the bones were found, has a deep history of human occupation, though it is a contested one. A handful of human fossils including two jawbones previously found in shallower layers of sediments – shipped to the United States for study before being returned home to Laos – have dated to between 70,000 and 46,000 years old.

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Ancient Bird Bones May Have Been Fashioned Into Flutes for Catching More Birds

12,000-year-old bird bones found in the far north of Israel may have been used as instruments by prehistoric humans to lure more birds to their death, according to a team of archaeologists that studied the artifacts.

The perforated bones were found in Israel’s Hula Valley, just west of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in 1967. The bones were first excavated in 1955 but were recently reexamined.

Seven wing bones from the site belonged to coots and teals. Upon recent inspection, a team of archaeologists found that marks on the bones were actually minuscule holes bored into their sides.

The team posits that the bones were used as flutes (aerophones, to use scientific language) to mimic the calls of birds of prey. These calls would frighten the migratory birds into taking wing, making them easier targets for Natufian hunters, the scientists speculate. The team’s analysis of the bones was published today in Scientific Reports.

“If the flutes were used for hunting, then this is the earliest evidence of the use of sound in hunting,” said Hamudi Khalaily, an archaeologist at the Israel Antiquities Authority and co-author of the paper, in a Hebrew University of Jerusalem release.

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39 Prehistoric Megaliths At ‘The French Stonehenge’ Destroyed by Monumental Error

DIY chain Mr. Bricolage is under fire for ‘accidentally’ destroying a vital part of the deeply ancient historical heritage of Brittany – ‘The French Stonehenge’. The unfortunate destruction of thirty-nine ancient standing stones at the renowned Neolithic site of Carnac in north-west France has caused widespread dismay.

The incredibly significant archaeological site in Brittany, encompasses thousands of standing stones spread across 27 communes, making it one of the most important prehistoric sites in Europe . These ” menhirs,” or single standing stones, constitute one of the largest collections of their kind in the world, famously depicted as the colossal rocks carried by Obelix in the beloved French comic series “Asterix & Obelix”, reports The Local .

Believed to have been erected during the Neolithic period, some of these stones date back thousands of years, originating as early as 4,000 BC. However, the recent construction of a new DIY store on the outskirts of the heritage area has been detrimental to its preservation, to say the least. With so many stones, it seems it has proven difficult to keep account of them all.

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