Tag: lost civilizations

Mysterious Ancient Language Revealed on Bronze Hand From 2,100 Years Ago

Abronze hand from 2,100 years ago has revealed rare evidence of a mysterious ancient language, with researchers determining that the inscription is the oldest and longest example of Vasconic to date.

A team of researchers analyzed the artifact, found at the site of an Iron Age hillfort known as Irulegi in Navarre, northern Spain, for a newly published study in the journal Antiquity—and also suggested the words written on it could be linked to modern-day Basque.

Vasconic was spoken by a pre-Roman people known as the Vascones, who once inhabited the western Pyrenees in an area that corresponds primarily with modern-day Navarre, as well as parts of the Spanish regions of La Rioja and Aragon. And as one of only a few known examples of it, the inscription offers fascinating insights into one of Europe’s least understood ancient languages.

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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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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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Scientists Are Racing to Unearth the Secrets of an Ancient Underwater World

Around 8,000 to 6,000 BCE, the North and Baltic seas … weren’t seas at all. Instead, they were vast plains that were home to ancient human civilizations. But as the curtain drew to a close on the last Ice Age, water levels rose and inundated these low-lying areas, wiping away any trace of prospering civilizations. Well—almost any trace.

The University of Bradford’s Submerged Landscapes Research Centre in the U.K., TNO Geological Survey of the Netherlands, Flanders Marine Institute, and the University of York will soon explore these long-lost civilizations as part of a research collaboration known as SUBNORDICA. One of the ancient lands the project aims to explore is Doggerland, which is thought to have thrived in North Sea region some 8,200 years ago.

“Twenty-thousand years ago, the global sea level was 130 metres lower than at present. With progressive global warming and sea-level rise, unique landscapes, home to human societies for millennia, disappeared,” Vincent Gaffney, leader of the Submerged Landscapes Research Centre, said in a press statement. “We know almost nothing about the people who lived on these great plains. As Europe and the world approaches net zero, development of the coastal shelves is now a strategic priority. SUBNORDICA will use the latest technologies to explore these lands and support sustainable development.”

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HOMO SAPIENS ARRIVING IN NORTHERN EUROPE OVER 45,000 YEARS AGO ENCOUNTERED THIS ENIGMATIC HUMAN SPECIES

A genetic analysis of bones found in Northern Europe shows that anatomically modern humans, aka Homo sapiens, first arrived in the area when it was already home to another enigmatic human species, Homo neanderthalensis.

Although advances in genetic analysis had already shown that early Europeans engaged and interbred with Neanderthals, the latest findings show that those first encounters took place during much earlier times before the extinction of this ancient offshoot of humanity.

BONE FRAGMENTS OF HOMO SAPIENS DATED FROM 47,500 TO 45,000 YEARS AGO

Performed by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and supported by the Max Planck Society, the new analysis involved numerous bone fragments collected at the Ilsenhöhle cave site near Ranis, Germany. Previous excavations at the site had revealed finely-flaked, leaf-shaped stone tools, placing it among the oldest known sites of Stone Age human culture in north-central and northwestern Europe.

According to a press release announcing the findings, “the stone blades at Ranis, referred to as leaf points, are similar to stone tools found at several sites in Moravia, Poland, Germany, and the United Kingdom. These tools are thought to have been produced by the same culture referred to as the Lincombian–Ranisian–Jerzmanowician (LRJ) culture or technocomplex.”

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Archaeologists Have Uncovered a Bronze Age Civilization Completely Lost to Time

The world already knew that the largest structures in the world (prior to the Iron Age) were the Bronze Age megaforts of Central Europe. What they didn’t know—at least, until it was unveiled by new satellite and aerial images—is that those megaforts were connected in a previously unknown network of 100 massive sites that stitched together to form a complex society.

Archaeologists found that the “massive sites did not stand alone, they were part of a dense network of closely related and codependent communities,” Barry Molloy—one of the authors of the new study describing these structures, published in the journal PLOS One—said in a statement. “At their peak, the people living within this lower Pannonian network of sites must have numbered into the tens of thousands.”

Some of the largest megaforts—like Gradište Iđoš, Csanádpalota, Sântana, or Corneşti Iarcuri—were enclosed by over 20 miles of ditches and were the largest of the Bronze Age. They were located in the Carpathian Basin, which extends across central and southeast Europe and is cut through by the Danube River.

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Hunting Instruments Dating Back 1,900 Years Discovered in Mexican Cave

In a small gallery of the Cueva del Tesoro, in Cadereyta de Montes, Querétaro, authorities have recovered one of the few sets of hunting tools from pre-Hispanic times discovered so far in Mexico. It is an  atlatl (spear) and two wooden darts, used in the first century AD.

The discovery was recorded by members of the Association of Cavers of Querétaro who were exploring a cave located the in the community of Rancho Quemado. When they found the ancient objects, they notified the INAH Querétaro Center to ensure its safeguarding, conservation, and research.

In April 2023, a team from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) working under the auspices of the federal Ministry of Culture archaeologists including Carlos Viramontes Anzures, Jesús Eduardo Medina Villalobos and Ricardo Leonel Cruz Jiménez, ascended an intricate ravine, under the supervision of the members of said caving association and the guide of the Portuguese speleologist Paulo Campos.

The cave is located 200 meters (656 feet) up from the bottom of the ravine, and from the entrance they entered a further 200 meters (656 feet), through a narrow passage, until reaching the gallery.

Within this underground area, with an average height of just 80 centimeters (31.5 inches), the specialists came across an  atlatl 51.5 centimeters (20.3 in) long, two fragmented darts of 66 and 79 centimeters (26 & 31.1 inches) long and a pair of culturally modified logs of 135 and 172 centimeters (53.15 & 67.7 inches) in length, which are probably digging sticks, although they were likely used as multifunctional tools.

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Beneath Roman Britain – An Iron Age Settlement Is Revealed At Silchester

Five decades on from the start of an archaeological dig by the University of Reading, the findings of the investigation will be brought to the public, showcasing the incredible discoveries from excavations at the ancient Roman city of Silchester in Hampshire, England. This complex and revealing site became an important Roman town, but was already inhabited by an earlier encroacher to the land, the Atrebates tribe from across the Channel in Northern Gaul.

The University of Reading press release explains how, with the deep historic discoveries that have been made, visitors to the traveling exhibition,  Becoming Roman – Silchester, a Town of Change, will be transported back 2000 years to discover what life was like for the French tribe (strictly Belgic) that established the settlement, and how this life changed after the Roman Conquest of Britain.

When the exploratory forces of Julius Caesar first entered Iron Age Britain, showing their highly organized society and flexing their military muscles, they found a heterogenous society organized into tribes led by their chieftains, who defended their territories from the plentiful hillforts that littered the countryside.

Although these groups had arrived at the shores of Britain from various areas around Western and Northern Europe, some no doubt forced there due to territorial troubles in their own homelands, the Romans (and Greeks) referred to them homogeneously as ‘Celts’, as they shared some related languages and cultural traits.

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EVIDENCE OF 45,000-YEAR-OLD ADVANCED MATERIAL CULTURE DISCOVERED IN NORTH CHINA

Evidence of an advanced material culture that once thrived 45,000 years ago in East Asia has been discovered in China, according to an international team of archaeologists.

Analysis of materials from previous excavations that occurred in the early 1960s at the Shiyu archaeological site in China’s Shanxi Province represents what is believed to be the oldest use of such technologies in Northeast Asia, and provides new insights into ancient migrations of humans across the continent.

THE ANCIENT HORSE HUNTERS

According to the new analysis of materials retrieved from the location, the site’s Upper Palaeolithic assemblage dates to 45,000 years ago, and includes “blade technology, tanged and hafted projectile points, long-distance obsidian transfer, and the use of a perforated graphite disk,” according to Yang Shixia, an associate professor and first author of a new study detailing the team’s work.

In addition to its stone tool assemblage, obsidian from the site was determined to have been carried from quarries as far as 1000 kilometers away in the Russian Far East. Yang and the team also found evidence of “increased hunting skills denoted by the selective culling of adult equids, and the recovery of tanged and hafted projectile points with evidence of impact fractures,” according to a recent paper that describes their discoveries.

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PEOPLE LIVING IN THE ANDES 9,000 YEARS AGO MAY COMPLETELY REDEFINE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF HUNTER-GATHERERS

Isotopic analysis of the remains of people living 9,000-6,500 years ago in the Andes Mountains of modern-day Peru indicates they were not hunter-gatherers as previously believed but instead would be better categorized as “gatherer-hunters.” That’s because “hunter-gatherers” implies a diet consisting primarily of hunted meat supplemented by a diet of gathered plants, whereas these early Peruvians existed on a diet that was 80% plant-based.

“Conventional wisdom holds that early human economies focused on hunting — an idea that has led to a number of high-protein dietary fads such as the Paleo diet,” explained University of Wyoming Assistant Professor of Archaeology Randy Haas, who led the research effort. “Our analysis shows that the diets were composed of 80 percent plant matter and 20 percent meat.”

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