Tag: archaeology

ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNEARTH NEW CLUES THAT COULD HELP SOLVE CENTURIES-OLD “LOST COLONY” MYSTERY

In 1587, John White and a group of approximately 115 English settlers landed on Roanoke Island off the coast of present-day North Carolina. The colony they sought to establish marked the second attempt to create a long-term presence in the New World under the direction of Sir Walter Raleigh, who instructed them to establish a city bearing his name in the vicinity of the Chesapeake Bay. However, much like the earlier failed effort under Governor Ralph Lane in 1585, White and his fellow colonists soon began to face challenges that included strained relations with the region’s Indigenous inhabitants.

With hopes of garnering additional support for the colony, White sailed back to England, leaving his daughter Eleanor Dare, her husband Ananias Dare, and their infant daughter Virginia—the first English child born in America—behind on Roanoke Island. By the time he returned in 1590, following delays imposed by the Anglo-Spanish War, White found the settlement had been deserted. The only potential clues regarding the whereabouts of the colonists had been an inscription of the word “CROATOAN” carved into a palisade, along with the letters “CRO” found carved into a nearby tree, seemingly in reference to a nearby island located 50 miles to the south.

For centuries, historians have attempted to resolve the mystery of Roanoke’s famous “Lost Colony.” Theories about the fate of the colonists range from their assimilation with local Indigenous tribes to their possible death resulting from attacks by them. Others have proposed that the colonists may have died in a failed attempt to return to England or even that their fate may have been linked to the arrival of the Spanish prior to White’s return in 1590.

For White, the inscriptions left at the deserted colony were clear evidence of the colonists’ relocation to Croatoan Island. An agreement had been made that in the event of their departure, they would leave behind a “secret token” indicating their whereabouts, or if they were imperiled, they would instead leave a cross pattée indicating such circumstances.

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Potential Bronze Age Burial Chamber Discovered on Dartmoor

What appears to be a Bronze Age burial chamber has been unearthed on Dartmoor, promising to deepen our understanding of Devon’s ancient history. This discovery, potentially dating back 4,000 years, echoes the importance of the 2011 find at Whitehorse Hill (shown), which provided unprecedented insights into the early Bronze Age lifestyle.

Excited Anticipation of What Has Been Found

According to a Devon Live report, the latest find on Dartmoor has captivated historians and archaeologists alike. Found in a secluded area to prevent tampering, the site’s exact location remains undisclosed. The discovery was made possible due to peat erosion, revealing what appears to be a cist—a type of ancient coffin used during the Bronze Age.

Dr. Lee Bray, a leading archaeologist involved in the excavation commented, “We have every potential for this to be something quite special,…. We don’t know for certain if this is a cist, but it certainly looks like one. All the evidence we have points to it being a cist from the early Bronze Age,” reports Devon Live.

Bray highlighted the cist’s potential significance, likening it to the Whitehorse Hill find, which was identified as the resting place of a young woman from around 1700 BC. Also discovered on Dartmoor, that find attracted international attention for the insights it provided into Bronze Age life, and a video depicting how the woman’s life might have been gained much interest.

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Curious L-Shaped Structure Found near Giza Pyramids is 4,500-Years-Old

An international team of archaeologists has stumbled upon a mysterious L-shaped structure buried within a cemetery adjacent to the Great Pyramid of Khufu in Giza. The structure is 4,500 years and would have been built around the same time as the pyramid.

The discovery of this ‘blank area’ and ‘anomaly’ came about through the scanning of the surface of Giza’s prestigious Western Cemetery using ground-penetrating technology. This burial site was designated for members of King Khufu’s royal family and esteemed officials, interred in mastabas, funerary tombs typical of the era.

The newfound structure is encompassed by these mastabas, all meticulously arranged in uniform alignment. Yet, curiously, no notable excavations have previously taken place within this peculiar vacant space.

Mastabas, serving as burial structures for the royal family and esteemed officers, are distinguished by their flat roofs and rectangular designs typically crafted from limestone or mudbricks. Central to their architecture is a vertical shaft connecting to an underground chamber, essential for the burial rituals and eternal resting place of the deceased.

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2,700-Year-Old Iron Age Pit Tomb Necropolis Unearthed in Italy

During excavations launched ahead of an upcoming electric power plant construction project, archaeologists unearthed an approximately 2,700-year-old necropolis about 31 miles (50 kilometers) northeast of Naples, Italy. The fascinating discovery was announced in a press release issued by the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscapes for the provinces of Caserta and Benevento, which has been managing the archaeological work at the construction site.

“Although the excavation of the site has brought to light various levels of occupation, from prehistoric times to late antiquity, the best-preserved archaeological evidence concerns the large funerary area, which was used between the final phases of the Iron Age and the advanced Orientalizing period (third quarter of the eighth – second half/end of the seventh century BC),” the Superintendency press release (translated from Italian) stated.

Interestingly, the installation and use of the large cemetery coincides with the founding of the city of Rome, which according to legend occurred in 753 BC. But the Iron Age culture responsible for this burial ground had no direct connection with the Romans or with Rome, which was located 120 miles (200 kilometers) away.

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Cosmic Rays, Tree Rings, and the Real Story of the Building of Jerusalem

A new archaeological study of ancient Jerusalem is forcing experts to reevaluate some of their past assumptions about the history of that holy city. New research has presented evidence that Biblical accounts of that history are more accurate than previously believed, and that Jerusalem was already a growing city even before the reign of the legendary King David, who ruled the United Kingdom of Israel in the early 10th century BC.

In a report just published in the journal PNAS, a team of archaeologists and researchers from the University of Tel Aviv, the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Weizmann Institute of Science explain the exciting and revolutionary results of their detailed study, which emerged from the application of newly refined radiocarbon dating technology. With the most accurate dating results ever obtained from the old city of Jerusalem, the archaeologists claim to have shown infrastructure projects there were initiated centuries earlier than other research had suggested.

“Until now, most researchers have linked Jerusalem’s growth to the west, to the period of King Hezekiah – just over 2,700 years ago,” said study co-author Yuval Gadot, an archaeologist from Tel Aviv University, in an interview quoted in the Daily Mail Online.

“The conventional assumption to date has been that the city expanded due to the arrival of refugees from the Kingdom of Israel in the north, following the Assyrian exile. However, the new findings strengthen the view that Jerusalem grew in size and spread towards Mount Zion already in the ninth century BC. This was during the reign of King Jehoash – a hundred years before the Assyrian exile.”

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Historians uncover 18th-century bottles with mysterious liquid at George Washington’s Mt. Vernon

Archaeologists recently discovered two glass bottles filled with a mysterious liquid at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in Virginia.

The archaeologist who found the bottles, Nick Beard, told FOX 5 DC that he was digging in the mansion’s cellar as part of a revitalization project.

Beard found the top of a bottle, and then the whole bottle, before noticing a second bottle. Astoundingly, the bottles contained a liquid that had miraculously survived the past three centuries.

“Just the fact that there was liquid at all. That, right there, sets off alarm bells,” Beard said. “If there’s water, or liquid, pooling in there like that, that means it’s very intact, it’s in very good shape.”

Experts believe that the bottles were originally filled with cherries. The glass bottles were placed in the ground between 1758 and 1776 to refrigerate food.

“For whatever reason, these were left behind and they were in pristine condition, and that’s why this is such an extraordinary find because you just don’t find 18th-century food remains, intact, outside of things like animal bones, which are pretty durable,” Mount Vernon principal archaeologist Jason Boroughs told FOX 5.

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Carved Bone in Poland shows us how Neanderthals were Thinking

Nobody thought much of the bone fragment when it was discovered in the Dziadowa Skała Cave in southern Poland in the 1950s. It would take the better part of a century, and a brilliant new study, for the secrets of the artifact to be fully revealed.

The find, a fragment of the radius bone of a bear with 17 incisions, is proving to be a vital early indicator of Neanderthals’ cognitive abilities in the area. Dated to the Eemian period between 130,000 and 115,000 years ago, it offers stunning insight into how our lost relatives were thinking.

How Smart Were They?

A team of researchers has now re-analyzed the fragment using advanced microscopy and X-ray computed tomography techniques, publishing their finds in the Journal of Archaeological Sciences. The findings confirm the bone is one of Europe’s oldest symbolic cultural artifacts. Further, it has been shown that the bone had been intentionally marked with a retouched stone tool: the Neanderthals carved this, and with a very specific purpose.

“This makes it one of the earliest traces of symbolic culture recorded in Eurasia, which is represented by a series of seventeen incisions made with a broad-edged flint tool, possibly a bifacial knife. Current analyses show that the marks were made in a single session by a right-handed individual through repeated incisions, mostly using a technique where the movement was towards themselves. Apparently, the incisions served no practical purpose,” write the authors of the study.

The incisions had been made during a singular event by a right-handed individual employing repetitive, unidirectional motions of the tool’s cutting edge. These incisions, distinctively purposeful in nature, were not incidental to practical tasks but rather deliberate actions.

The bear radius from Dziadowa Skała in southern Poland’s Upland of Częstochowa serves as compelling evidence for the early development of symbolic culture among hominids in both Africa and Eurasia. Furthermore, it stands as the earliest known instance of deliberately marked bone north of the Carpathian Mountains, shedding light on the cognitive capacities and cultural practices of ancient inhabitants in this region.

Excavated between 1952 and 1954 by Waldemar Chmielewski, the Dziadowa Skała site resides within a natural karst cavity amidst the Jurassic limestone formations of a wooded hill near Łężec in Skarżyce, a district of Zawiercie. The bone, initially mistaken for a cave bear rib upon its recovery in 1953, has turned out to be so much more than a cast off remnant, reports LBV Magazine.

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The Incredible Sound Effects of Malta’s Hypogeum Hal Saflieni

The Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni in Malta is a UNESCO World Heritage Site which is believed to be the oldest prehistoric underground temple in the world.  The subterranean structure is shrouded in mystery, from the discovery of elongated skulls to stories of paranormal phenomena. But the characteristic that has been attracting experts from around the globe is the unique acoustic properties found within the underground chambers of the Hypogeum. 

Hal Saflieni Hypogeum is a cultural property of exceptional prehistoric value, dating back approximately 5,000 years and the only known example of a subterranean structure of the Bronze Age. The ‘labyrinth’, as it is often called, consists of a series of elliptical chambers and alveoli of varying importance across three levels, to which access is gained by different corridors. The principal rooms distinguish themselves by their domed vaulting and by the elaborate structure of false bays inspired by the doorways and windows of contemporary terrestrial constructions.  

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Archaeologists Searched For a Cult’s Secrets—and Stumbled Upon an Ancient Henge Instead

The search to better understand a cult from over 1,300 years ago led to an even older find: one of the largest henge sites ever seen in eastern England, dating back to the Neolithic period.

The legend surrounding the ruins of a medieval abbey near Crowland, England, links the henge with an Anglo-Saxon hermitage honoring Saint Guthlac. But it turns out that the site’s history runs much deeper.

After Guthlac gave up his life as the son of a nobleman to live in solitude, he became a popular figure. Shortly after his death in 714 AD, a small monastic community formed in his memory. The success of this cult helped establish the Crowland Abbey in the 10th century, but little else is known about Guthlac and the location on which his hermitage once rested.

In searching for the site, archaeologists found something arguably even more exciting. A study published in the Journal of Field Archaeology chronicles a location known as Anchor Church Field and its ties to ancient history.

Archaeologists long suspected that Anchor Church Field was the site of Guthlac’s hermitage. But when a team from Newcastle University and the University of Sheffield joined forces to excavate the location, they discovered an unknown Neolithic or Early Bronze Age henge—defined by English Heritage as a prehistoric circular or oval earthen enclosure with a ring-shaped bank on the outside and a ring-shaped ditch on the inside, likely used for ceremonial purposes. It turns out the circular earthwork is one of the largest ever found in eastern England, and carbon dating on a timber portion of the henge places its construction at about 1400 BC.

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Discoveries at Mt Ellanio Reveal Mycenean Refuge from the Bronze Age Collapse

An interdisciplinary team of archaeologists has been investigating the tallest mountain on the Greek island of Aegina since 2021: Mount Ellanio. Overlooking the Saronic Gulf, the peak holds the remnants of a 4th century Temple of Zeus Hellanios.

The mission, a Greek-Swiss partnership (EFAPN), is investigating the mountain’s prehistoric occupation, and have found a building measuring 4.5 by 3 meters (15 by 10 feet), containing an assortment of 30 ceramic vessels. What makes the building so special is that it is Mycenean.

Zeus on Ellanio: A Sanctuary and Safe Haven

The presence of Zeus worship on Mount Ellanio is documented in ancient texts like those of Pausanias. A chapel now stands atop these ancient foundations, but Corinthian clay tiles suggest an earlier structure beneath, likely a small temple.

North of the chapel, sacrificial remnants in a black layer, along with countless charred animal bone fragments, unveil ancient rituals. The discovery of pottery spanning from the Geometric era to Roman times also underscore the sacred site’s continuity.

An analysis of the vessels’ form and style helps trace their origins to the twilight and dying embers of the Mycenaean palatial era (the Late Bronze Age in Greece). This was a tumultuous epoch characterized by upheaval and disintegration of much of the ancient world, spanning the years from 1200 to 1050 BC, according to a press release by the Greek Ministry of Culture.

In the wake of this upheaval, mainland Greece witnessed a mass exodus, as waves of Mycenaean refugees sought solace in faraway lands, including Cyprus, the Levant, and neighboring Aegean islands. It was the end of Bronze Age Greece, and led to a Greek Dark Age lasting hundreds of years.

Aegina emerged as a sanctuary of respite amongst its mountainous contours, with survivors of the chaos seeking refuge amidst the sacred peaks. The fortified enclosure, consisting of retaining walls, ancient towers, and rock inscriptions, along with the dwellings at the summit, indicate the use of the hill as this refuge.

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