Tag: ancient history

The origins of weed: How the plant spread across the world

Cannabis has grown and evolved with humans for thousands of years. Many separate cultures cultivated the plant, using its seeds for food, its fibers to make textiles, rope, and other materials, and its buds as a medicine and psychoactive substance in spiritual ceremonies. Cannabis proved to be a very useful plant for our ancestors and it continues to be today.

If there was one thing our ancestors knew, it was the healing properties of cannabis. While the wonders of cannabis medicine may feel like a new discovery in the West, cultures in the East have used and documented it for thousands of years. 

Check out the story of cannabis—where it originated, how it spread across the globe, and which cultures used it. Learn how important the plant was to ancient humans and how it continues to be important to humans today. 

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Eight-Year-Old Norwegian Girl Discovers Neolithic Dagger at School Playground

For Elise, a student at Our Children’s School in Osøyro, Norway, a recent trip to the playground brought a special surprise—and international attention.

The 8-year-old girl was outside with her classmates when she bent down to pick up a stray shard of glass. Instead, she says in a statement, what appeared to be a small rock caught her eye. Realizing the item’s potential significance, Elise’s teacher, Karen Drange, notified the Vestland County Council of the discovery.

The almost five-inch-long object turned out to be a flint dagger dated to the Neolithic era, which began in the region around 2400 B.C.E., when humans started shifting from hunting and gathering to farming, according to the educational website Talk Norway. Live Science’s Laura Geggel notes that this specific type of dagger “is often found with sacrificial finds.”

Because flint isn’t a resource native to Norway, researchers suspect the roughly 3,700-year-old dagger originated elsewhere, perhaps in Denmark. An excavation of the school’s grounds following Elise’s discovery unearthed no related artifacts, strengthening the theory that the tool was brought to Norway after its creation.

In the statement, Louise Bjerre Petersen, an archaeologist who assessed the tool, calls it a beautiful, incredibly rare find. The dagger is now in the possession of experts at the University Museum of Bergen, who will study it for clues on life in Neolithic Norway.

Elise is far from the only schoolchild to happen upon an astonishing ancient artifact in the past few years. In July 2018, another 8-year-old girl, Saga Vanecek, uncovered an Iron Age sword in a Swedish lake, leading locals and news outlets alike to dub her the “Queen of Sweden” in reference to the Arthurian legend of the Sword in the Stone.

“I held it up in the air and I said, ‘Daddy, I found a sword!’” Vanecek told the Local’s Catherine Edwards. “When he saw that it bent and was rusty, he came running up and took it.”

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Enigmatic human fossil jawbone may be evidence of an early Homo sapiens presence in Europe – and adds mystery about who those humans were

Homo sapiens, our own species, evolved in Africa sometime between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago. Anthropologists are pretty confident in that estimate, based on fossil, genetic and archaeological evidence.

Then what happened? How modern humans spread throughout the rest of the world is one of the most active areas of research in human evolutionary studies.

The earliest fossil evidence of our species outside of Africa is found at a site called Misliya cave, in the Middle East, and dates to around 185,000 years ago. While additional H. sapiens fossils are found from around 120,000 years ago in this same region, it seems modern humans reached Europe much later.

Understanding when our species migrated out of Africa can reveal insights into present-day biological, behavioral and cultural diversity. While we Homo sapiens are the only humans alive today, our species coexisted with different human lineages in the past, including Neandertals and Denisovans. Scientists are interested in when and where H. sapiens encountered these other kinds of humans.

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Psychedelic drugs were used by ancient man, new study shows

Researchers have found evidence of drug use during Bronze Age ceremonies.

Analysis of strands of human hair from a burial site on the Spanish island of Menorca indicates ancient human civilisations used hallucinogenic drugs derived from plants.

The findings are the first direct evidence of ancient drug use in Europe, which may have been used as part of ritualistic ceremonies, researchers say.

Researchers detected scopolamine, ephedrine and atropine in three replicated hair samples.

Atropine and scopolamine are naturally found in the nightshade plant family and can induce delirium, hallucinations and altered sensory perception.

Ephedrine is a stimulant derived from certain species of shrubs and pines which can increase excitement, alertness and physical activity.

Elisa Guerra-Doce, from the Universidad de Valladolid in Spain, and colleagues examined hair from the Es Carritx cave, which was first occupied around 3,600 years ago.

Writing in the Scientific Reports journal, the authors said: “Interestingly, the psychoactive substances detected in this study are not suitable for alleviating the pain involved in severe palaeopathological conditions attested in the population buried in the cave of Es Carritx, such as periapical abscesses, severe caries and arthropathies.

“Considering the potential toxicity of the alkaloids found in the hair, their handling, use and applications represented highly specialised knowledge. This knowledge was typically possessed by shamans, who were capable of controlling the side-effects of the plant drugs through an ecstasy that made diagnosis or divination possible.”

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Study Suggests Bronze Age Ice Skates Discovered In China Were Imported From Europe

A 3,500-year-old pair of ice skates were discovered in a mountainous area of China, archaeologists claimed in late February.

Researchers investigating the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region discovered the oldest-known skates in a tomb in the Gaotai Ruins, according LiveScience. The skates are made out of the bones of oxen and horse, but it is unclear whether they were used for sport, hunting, or regular travel throughout the region.

The design is unique, made of a very flat blade that forms a cutting edge allowing users to glide over ice, LiveScience continued. Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology researcher Ruan Qiurong said the newly-discovered skates are almost exactly the same as some found in prehistoric Europe.

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Mystery Surrounds Sudden Firing Of Notable Archaeologist. What Was He Digging Up?

World-renowned archeologist and university professor David Keller was mysteriously released from his job in December, and no one will go on record to say why.

Keller, 52, is best known as an award-winning author and intrepid researcher of human history and for bringing grants to his former employer of 21 years, the Center for Big Bend Studies at Sul Ross State University, according to a report from mid-2022. Keller was fired from his position at the school despite being in the throes of research.

“It was humiliating and sad and infuriating all at the same time,” Keller told Texas Monthly following his firing. “That was my career, my livelihood, and much of my identity. To fire me in such a swift and cavalier manner felt very unfair considering my time there.” Keller said he planned to retire in five years anyway and was in the middle of three major projects for the institution.

According to Keller, the school told him, “We’re not going to tell you why, and we appreciate your service, and you need to pick up your stuff and go.” He further claimed that the school told him the decision had something to do with his work at Big Bend National Park, where Keller’s permit was suspended in December.

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Rare Discovery Of Roman Dodecahedron Fragment Adds To Archaeological Mystery

A chance find by an amateur metal detectorist has added to a long-running mystery of archaeology, as a fragment of an Ancient Roman dodecahedron has been found in the small town of Kortessem, in Belgium. 

The piece, originally part of a dodecahedron measuring 5-6 centimeters (2–2.36 inches) in size, shows signs of having been repaired in the past, with local archaeologists at the Flanders Heritage Agency suggesting that it may have been broken in some kind of ancient ritual.

Roman dodecahedra are something of a puzzle: more than 100 such artifacts have been found throughout Europe over the past few centuries, each of them meticulously cast in these perfect 12-sided polyhedra. Each face of the bronze dodecahedra has a small hole through the center, though no hole is the same size as another, and each vertex is decorated with a tiny bauble – though apart from that, the little doodads seem to have no distinctive markings at all.

We can infer that they must have been important, at least to some of their owners, since several have been found among coin hoards and – the new example notwithstanding – hardly any show signs of the kind of wear and tear you might expect over nearly two millennia of history. 

And yet the simple fact is that nobody knows what Roman dodecahedra were actually used for. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that hundreds of them have been discovered, you’d never know they existed at all, since no record of them has ever been found in contemporary art or writing.

That hasn’t stopped people from theorizing. Perhaps the mysterious little objects were used as rangefinders or angle measurers, people have suggested, or maybe the Romans used them for astronomical predictions to aid in agriculture. Since the advent of YouTube, the idea that the dodecahedra were used as knitting aids has proved particularly popular – but since even knitting needles aren’t known in the historical record until a good few centuries later, that hypothesis is likely not true. 

Instead, archaeologists at the Flanders Heritage Agency favor a more esoteric explanation. “There is increasing evidence that dodecahedrons may not have been practical objects, such as measuring instruments,” the statement says. “The known specimens are too different in dimensions and details for that.”

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Man Stumbles On Vast Underground City Behind Wall During Home Reno—And Tunnels Go On Forever

Amid the strange fairy chimney stacks of eroded rock that litter the landscape of Cappadocia in central Turkey, little more than an inkling suggests that a sprawling subterranean city lies under the arid ground beneath one’s feet.

For centuries, the inhabitants of the Anatolian plateau have been carving dwellings, monasteries, and troglodyte villages out of the local soft volcanic rock, conjuring what look like scenes from a Tolkien novel today. There’s plenty enough to stir imaginations aboveground, luring tourists to hike and hot-air balloon in Cappadocia; meanwhile, an underground world with hundreds of miles of chambers and passages rests unseen below.

Called Elengubu in ancient times, after its recent rediscovery this cavernous city borrowed the namesake of its overlying district, Derinkuyu, in Nevşehir province. Abandoned centuries ago, the intricate tunnel network of Derinkuyu once offered safety and concealment for those seeking refuge amid persecution.

Yet the city was—and still is—intertwined with stone structures and dwellings overland. After it was abandoned, and after fading from public knowledge in the early 20th century, Derinkuyu’s accidental rediscovery in 1963 was credited to a home renovation. According to locals, a Turkish man who was expanding his domicile tore down a wall only to discover an abysmal passageway that seemed to go on forever, which led to the underground city’s prompt excavation. This was the first of some 600 entry points found connecting Derinkuyu with structures above.

Gargantuan in size, Derinkuyu spans some 275 square miles (445 square kilometers), descending 279 feet (85 meters) underground with some 18 levels. Once a bustling sub-terrestrial city, Derinkuyu is beset with living quarters for some 20,000 inhabitants, stables for livestock, wine and oil presses, cellars, chapels, schools, wells, and other amenities. This made the underground metropolis a fully self-sustaining community whose inhabitants could sever themselves from an outside world that was often fraught with danger in times of invasion or occupation.

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Previously Unknown Group Of People In Prehistoric Siberia Found By DNA

Genetic analysis has unveiled a previously unknown group of people who lived in Siberia during the last Ice Age around the borders of modern-day Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. It appears this mysterious group of people also had links to the multiple waves of humans who made the daring journey to North America. 

By the looks of things, some people actually migrated back in the “opposite” direction from North America to North Asia via the Bering Sea. This ancient legacy of the Americas still lives on in some people currently living in northeastern Siberia.

To reach their findings, scientists led by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology analyzed the genomes of ten individuals who lived in the Altai region of southern Siberia around 7,500 years ago. Paired with this, they looked at the genetic makeup of Eurasian and Native American populations in the present day. 

Their data revealed the Altai hunter-gatherers had a “unique gene pool” that indicates they were descendants of two key groups that lived in this part of Eurasia at the time: the paleo-Siberians and the Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) people. 

“We describe a previously unknown hunter-gatherer population in the Altai as early as 7,500 years old, which is a mixture between two distinct groups that lived in Siberia during the last Ice Age,” Cosimo Posth, senior study author from the University of Tübingen in Germany, said in a statement. 

“The Altai hunter-gatherer group contributed to many contemporaneous and subsequent populations across North Asia, showing how great the mobility of those foraging communities was,” he added.

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Enigmatic ‘writing system’ in ice age cave art deciphered

Hunter-gatherers who painted on cave walls 20,000 years ago also left behind something quite unexpected.For years, archaeologists have worked to understand the hidden meanings in the thousands of examples of prehistoric art found on cave walls across Europe.

These artistic works often featured animals such as bison, fish, reindeer and (the now extinct) aurochs, but some of them also included a sequence of dots and marks that seemed to be some form of writing system – one which experts had long struggled to fully interpret.

Now, though, a new collaboration between researcher Ben Bacon and experts from Durham University and University College London has finally lifted the lid on exactly what these symbols meant.

It turns out that the marks were actually part of an ancient writing system – a lunar calendar which was used to document the timing of the reproductive cycles of the animals.This type of information would have been highly relevant to the hunter-gatherers of the time.

“The results show that ice age hunter-gatherers were the first to use a systemic calendar and marks to record information about major ecological events within that calendar,” said archaeologist Prof Paul Pettitt of Durham University.

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