Tag: archaeology

Lost in Time and Out of Place: Trypillia Copper Axe is Poland’s Oldest

A remarkable discovery has been made in eastern Poland. Archaeologists have unearthed a copper axe in Poland’s Hrubieszów district which looks for all the world like it belongs to the ancient Trypillia culture.

This would date the find to a period between the 4th and 3rd millennium BC and make the axe the oldest copper artifact ever discovered in Poland. There is however a problem: the Trypillia culture was never in Poland.

A Lost Axe, Found

The axe itself is only small, and we can only guess as to what its exact purpose was. The Lublin Provincial Conservator of Monuments describes it as being made of copper and 7.4cm (3”) in length with a wide fan-shaped blade 4.1cm (1.6”) wide, and a rectangular convex head measuring 0.9cm x 0.6cm (0.3” x 0.2”), reports Heritage Daily.

When it was initially uncovered it was a complete mystery to the archaeologists, who had never seen anything like it before. The axe did not look like anything known from the Bronze Age in that region, and its simplicity and shape suggested it could be Neolithic. This would make it an extremely early example of metalworking.

“Our axe was made in a quite simple ‘primitive’ casting method in a flat-convex form, no longer used in the developed metallurgy of the Bronze Age. Therefore, it was necessary to pay attention to the earlier Neolithic era. Unfortunately, in the inventories of Neolithic cultures from Poland there is no such equivalent,” the Lublin conservator noted as reported in Arkeonews.

Given it did not resemble anything known from Neolithic cultures in Poland, either, it seemed to defy our understanding. It would take another discovery, in the neighboring Ukraine, to finally provide an answer.

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The wild psychedelic origins of indigenous mystical rites — as revealed by archaeology

We’ll never know when and where humans first discovered the mind-altering power of psychedelics. But it seems fair to state three things about our relationship with visionary drugs: it’s incalculably old, globally pervasive, and rich with meaning. Our ancestors likely began their long journey with naturally occurring psychotropic substances tens or even hundreds of thousands of years ago.

The nascent field of archaeochemistry has convincingly demonstrated Neanderthal use of psychoactive plants like yarrow and chamomile going back 50,000 years. Anthropologist Scott M. Fitzpatrick envisions the early hunter-gatherers of our own species encountering, consuming and experimenting “with a wide array of plants” and fungi — just like their Neanderthal cousins.

A generation ago, Terence McKenna famously introduced the Stoned Ape Theory, proposing an evolutionary advantage for a diet of psilocybin-containing mushrooms across the African savannas — not merely hundreds of thousands, but millions of years in our hominin past, prompting the development of proto-language, creativity, and religious insight well before the Neanderthals. Only now are scholars, like paleoanthropologist Lee Berger in South Africa, seriously investigating the bold claim.

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Scientists uncover evidence that microplastics are contaminating archaeological remains

Researchers have for the first time discovered evidence of microplastic contamination in archaeological soil samples.

The team discovered tiny microplastic particles in deposits located more than 7 meters deep, in samples dating back to the first or early second century and excavated in the late 1980s.

Preserving archaeology in situ has been the preferred approach to managing historical sites for a generation. However, the research team say the findings could prompt a rethink, with the tiny particles potentially compromising the preserved remains.

Microplastics are small plastic particles, ranging from 1 μm to 5 mm. They come from a wide range of sources, from larger plastic pieces that have broken apart, or resin pellets used in plastic manufacturing which were frequently used in beauty products up until around 2020.

The study, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, was carried out by the universities of York and Hull and supported by the educational charity York Archaeology.

Professor John Schofield from the University of York’s Department of Archaeology, said, “This feels like an important moment, confirming what we should have expected: That what were previously thought to be pristine archaeological deposits, ripe for investigation, are in fact contaminated with plastics, and that this includes deposits sampled and stored in the late 1980s.

“We are familiar with plastics in the oceans and in rivers. But here we see our historic heritage incorporating toxic elements. To what extent this contamination compromises the evidential value of these deposits, and their national importance is what we’ll try to find out next.”

David Jennings, chief executive of York Archaeology, added, “We think of microplastics as a very modern phenomenon, as we have only really been hearing about them for the last 20 years, when Professor Richard Thompson revealed in 2004 that they have been prevalent in our seas since the 1960s with the post-war boom in plastic production,”

“This new study shows that the particles have infiltrated archaeological deposits, and like the oceans, this is likely to have been happening for a similar period, with particles found in soil samples taken and archived in 1988 at Wellington Row in York.”

The study identified 16 different microplastic polymer types across both contemporary and archived samples.

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‘Astonishing’ Neolithic burial containing a human, cattle and chariot discovered in Germany

Archaeologists in Germany have discovered a Neolithic burial ground containing human and animal remains and the remnants of a chariot that may have been part of an ancient ritual.

The excavation site is located at an industrial park near Magdeburg, the capital of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It includes a pair of 6,000-year-old “monumental mounds” that contain multiple burials, according to a statement from the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt.

However, one burial in particular stands out, and researchers think it could be part of a ritualistic offering. This conclusion is based on the unique positioning of the skeletal remains of a man who was 35 to 40 years old when he died, two cattle and a chariot, which were placed in such a way to create “the image of a cart with a driver or a plow pulled by cattle,” according to the statement.

Researchers stressed the importance of the burial, since it “symbolize[s] that with the cattle the most important possession, the security of one’s own livelihood, was offered to the gods,” they wrote in the statement.

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Clay Tablet From 3,300-Years Ago Tells Story of the Siege and Plunder of Four Hittite Cities

A 3,300-year-old clay tablet unearthed in central Turkey has painted a tale of a devastating foreign invasion of the Hittite Empire during a period of internal strife and civil war. As the civil war played out, the invasion allegedly supported one of the warring factions, as deciphered from the tablet’s cuneiform script. Discovered in summer 2023, the palm-sized tablet was found amidst the ruins of Büklükale, situated approximately 37 miles (60km) southeast of Ankara, Turkey’s capital.

A Clay Tablet Indicating Royalty and Sacred Rites

Previously, only broken clay tablets and the like were unearthed at Büklükale, but this is the first complete tablet in near perfect condition. It had been discovered by archaeologist Kimiyoshi Matsumura of the Japanese Institute of Anatolian Archaeology in May 2023. The Hittite utilization of the Hurrian language in religious contexts suggests that the tablet serves as a historical record documenting a sacred rite performed by the Hittite monarch, reports Live Science.

Büklükale was thought to be a major Hittite city by archaeologists, but with this new discovery, potentially a royal residence on par with the Hittite capital, Hattusa, located some 70 miles (112km) to the northeast.

As per the translation by Mark Weeden, an associate professor specializing in ancient Middle Eastern languages at University College London, the initial six lines of cuneiform text on the tablet, inscribed in the Hittite language, lament the dire state of “four cities, including the capital, Hattusa,” indicating a calamitous event. The subsequent 64 lines are composed in the Hurrian language, constituting a prayer seeking divine assistance for victory.

“The find of the Hurrian tablet means that the religious ritual at Büklükale was performed by the Hittite king,” Weeden told  Live Science. “It indicates that, at the least, the Hittite king came to Büklükale … and performed the ritual.”

The Hurrian language, originally associated with the Mitanni kingdom in the region, eventually became utilized by the Hittite Empire in some sort of a subordinate capacity. Despite ongoing scholarly efforts, Hurrian remains a language of which we have limited understanding. Matsumura explained that experts have dedicated several months to deciphering the inscription’s meaning.

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Copper Age Settlement Shows Evidence of Accidental Ritual Mercury Abuse

Getting high off toxic insolvents and chemicals to induce mind-altering effects, is a public health concern today. Dial back 5,000 years ago, in the Iberian Peninsula, groups of women adorned in immaculate ceremonial attire would participate in a ritual dance before an audience, inhaling a vibrant red powder, or mixing it an elixir. This powder, derived from the mineral cinnabar, induced a fevered trance accompanied by tremors and delirium, and its users, visited different astral planes. But the dark side of this tradition was it necessitated a lifetime of dangerous and lethal mercury abuse.

What the users were unlikely to be aware of was that the ‘trip’ was a byproduct of the toxic metal mercury, today one of the most widely banned substances by public health departments all over the world. This usage and more have been wonderfully documented in a study published in late 2023 in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.

“Western medicine has basically banned mercury … [like] public health enemy No. 1,” says Leonardo García Sanjuán, the study’s lead author and an archaeologist at the University of Seville in Spain. “But the truth is, the history of the relationship of humans with mercury has been quite complex.”

Repeated exposure to these rituals led to the accumulation of mercury in the women’s bodily tissues over their lifetimes. Millennia later, archaeological analysis revealed significantly elevated levels of mercury in the bones of these women and others from their community, far surpassing modern health tolerances.

It appears that at the Copper Age settlement of Valencina, between approximately 2900 and 2650 BC, ritual leaders purposefully ingested mercury-rich cinnabar for ceremonial or magical purposes. Meanwhile, other community members may have inadvertently consumed it while working with the pigment or through environmental contamination.

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ANCIENT DISCOVERIES IN SOUTH AMERICAN CAVE REVEALED TO BE THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLDER THAN EXPERTS THOUGHT

Throughout the world, ancient artistic depictions that were long ago applied to the walls of caves and other stone surfaces offer a window to the past, and into the minds of those who crafted such imagery.

Now, recent research into the emergence of rock art in Patagonia has revealed that imagery depicted at the Cueva Huenul 1 cave is thousands of years older than archaeologists previously estimated.

The findings, detailed in Science Advances, offer new insights into both the evolution of rock art in the region and the ancient humans who resided there, but also have broader implications for our understanding of the sociocultural conditions that might have helped propel the emergence of ancient art.

Unlike other parts of South America, explorations of Patagonia’s prehistory were comparatively recent and remain limited in many respects, with much of its rock art and other archaeological offerings still undated using modern techniques.

Some of the most striking art in the region exists at the Cueva Huenul 1 cave, whose walls and ceiling feature almost 900 paintings that past studies have grouped into 446 motifs.

“CH1 is the most notable place for pigment-based rock art production in northwestern Patagonia and neighbor areas of central-western Argentina and central Chile,” the authors of the new study write, who now say they are among the oldest anywhere in the region, dating to thousands of years earlier than previous studies had placed them.

“We report the earliest set of directly radiocarbon-dated rock art motifs from the archaeological site Cueva Huenul 1,” some of which the authors say appeared “8.2 thousand years before the present (ka B.P.), predating previous records by several millennia,” and having been created over close to 130 generations during a 3,000-year period.

According to the study, this mid-Holocene gallery coincides with a “rock art emergence” phase that dovetails with arid conditions in the region and a temporary decline in the region’s human population.

“We suggest that this diachronic rock art emerged as part of a resilient response to ecological stress by highly mobile and low-density populations,” the authors report.

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MASSIVE STONE WALL BUILT MORE THAN 10,000 YEARS AGO FOUND HIDDEN BENEATH THE BALTIC SEA

Researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research in Warnemünde report the discovery of an ancient, 10,000-year-old massive stone wall that has remained submerged beneath the Baltic Sea for millennia.

At nearly a kilometer in length, the Stone Age megastructure hidden beneath the waters of the Bay of Mecklenburg in Germany is not only one of the oldest man-made hunting structures in Europe but likely one of the oldest pieces of construction in the entire world.

“It was likely constructed by hunter–gatherer groups more than 10000 y ago and ultimately drowned during the Littorina transgression at 8500 y B.P.,” the researchers explain in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Since then, it remained hidden at the seafloor, leading to a pristine preservation that will inspire research on the lifestyle and territorial development in the larger area.”

CROSS DISCIPLINES OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND MARINE GEOSCIENCE REVEAL DETAILS OF ANCIENT MASSIVE STONE WALL

When describing the discovery and early excavation of the submerged site, the researchers behind the historic find say that studying sites that have been underwater for this length of time is both rewarding and challenging. For instance, remaining underwater for thousands of years likely helped preserve much of the ancient site. However, studying something that is over 21 meters below the surface also has challenges that archaeologists don’t always face.

“The Baltic Sea basins, some of which only submerged in the mid-Holocene, preserve Stone Age structures that did not survive on land,” they explain. “Yet, the discovery of these features is challenging and requires cross-disciplinary approaches between archeology and marine geosciences.”

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Romans may have used a poisonous plant as a hallucinogenic drug 2,000 years ago, study finds

The Romans are known to have been one of the world’s most influential civilisations.

But even they may have enjoyed a little escapism – in the form of powerful hallucinogens, a study suggests.

Archaeologists have discovered hundreds of black henbane seeds in a hollowed bone at the rural Roman settlement of Houten-Castellum in the Netherlands.

These seeds originate from a poisonous plant, which is part of the nightshade family, and have been used as both a medicine and a narcotic.

Until now, no conclusive evidence of the use of black henbane has been discovered from Roman times.

But experts said the placement of seeds inside a hollowed-out sheep or goat bone, sealed with a black birch bark tar plug, indicate the seeds were stored there intentionally around 2,000 years ago.

Historic texts suggest that henbane may have been used as a painkiller and sleep remedy.

But others warn it can also have strong hallucinogenic effects – causing loss of muscle control, dilation of pupils, visions and even induce a sense of flying.

While this is the first example of black henbane being found in a container from the Roman period, it is not clear exactly what its intended use was, the researchers said.

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MYSTERIOUS JADE MASK AND OTHER ARTIFACTS IN 1700-YEAR-OLD TOMB REVEAL THE EXISTENCE OF AN UNKNOWN MAYA RULER

Artifacts unearthed in a 1,700-year-old Maya tomb in Guatemala, which include a jade mask and incised human remains, could point to an undocumented chapter in the history of the Maya Empire according to researchers involved with the discovery.

The tomb was discovered by researchers with Tulane University at the Chochkitam site, located near Guatemala’s borders with Belize and Mexico.

Among the remarkable discoveries at the site were a curious jade mosaic mask, as well as carved human femur bones, one of which appears to convey a man believed to be a Maya king holding such a mask.

According to researchers, hieroglyphs that accompany the carvings are believed to identify his ancestors and describe the lineage of rulers extending to the Maya states of Tikal and Teotihuacan.

Other findings within the tomb included 16 rare spondylus shells, a variety of oysters whose shell was revered by the Maya, and often worn as jewelry or used as currency, in addition to having been used in ceremonies.

The artifacts, which are believed to date to 350 CE, offer additional links to Tikal and Teotihuacan, which were highly influential on Maya rulers during this period.

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