Tag: lost civilizations

Ancient bricks baked when Nebuchadnezzar II was king absorbed a power surge in Earth’s magnetic field

Thousands of years ago, Earth’s magnetic field underwent a significant power surge over a part of the planet that included the ancient kingdom of Mesopotamia. People at the time probably never even noticed the fluctuation, but signs of the anomaly, including previously unknown details, were preserved in the mud bricks that they baked, new research has found.

When scientists recently examined bricks dating from the third to the first millennia BC in Mesopotamia — which encompassed present-day Iraq and parts of what is now Syria, Iran and Turkey — they detected magnetic signatures in those from the first millennium, indicating that the bricks were fired at a time when Earth’s magnetic field was unusually strong. Stamps on the bricks naming Mesopotamian kings enabled researchers to confirm the time range for the magnetic spike.

Their findings corresponded with a known magnetic surge called the “Levantine Iron Age geomagnetic Anomaly,” which took place between 1050 and 550 BC. It had previously been documented in artifacts from the Azores, Bulgaria and China using archaeomagnetic analysis — examining grains in pottery and ceramic archaeological objects for clues about Earth’s magnetic activity, scientists reported December 18 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“It is really exciting that ancient artifacts from Mesopotamia help to explain and record key events in Earth history such as fluctuations in the magnetic field,” said study coauthor Mark Altaweel, a professor of Near East archaeology and archaeological data science at the University College London’s Institute of Archaeology.

“It shows why preserving Mesopotamia’s ancient heritage is important for science and humanity more broadly,” Altaweel told CNN in an email.

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Rise of Archery in Andes Mountains Now Dated to 5,000 Years Ago

When did archery arise in the Americas? And what were the effects of this technology on society?

These questions have long been debated among anthropologists and archaeologists. But a study led by a University of California, Davis, anthropologist, published in Quaternary International is shining light on this mystery.

Focusing on the Lake Titicaca Basin in the Andes mountains, anthropologists found through analysis of 1,179 projectile points that the rise of archery technology dates to around 5,000 years ago. Previous research held that archery in the Andes emerged around 3,000 years ago.

The new research indicates that the adoption of bow-and-arrow technology coincided with both the expansion of exchange networks and the growing tendency for people to reside in villages.

“We think our paper is groundbreaking because it gives us a chance to see how society changed throughout the Andes throughout ancient times by presenting a huge number of artifacts from a vast area of South America,” said Luis Flores-Blanco, an anthropology doctoral student and corresponding author of the paper. “This is among the first instances in which Andean archaeologists have investigated social complexity through the quantitative analysis of stone tools.”

Researchers said increasing social complexity in the region is usually investigated through analysis of monumental architecture and ceramics rather than projectile points, which are historically linked to foraging communities.

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From Peas to Prosperity: Researchers Discover the Diet that Shaped the Oldest Cities

You are what you eat! A team of researchers from Kiel University has delved into the nutritional aspects of Trypillia mega-sites in the forest steppe northwest of the Black Sea—today the territory of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. These mega-sites emerged approximately 6,000-years ago and were the largest settlements globally during this period, covering areas of up to 320 hectares. The Neolithic settlements during this period had farmers cultivating a diet of primarily beans, grains and peas, the research shows.

The study is part of the latest investigations into Trypillia societies, which boasted populations of around 15,000 people. They’re regarded as the oldest ‘cities’ in Europe, predating even the urbanization of Mesopotamia.

The research and study is led by the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1266 at Kiel University (CAU), was published in Proceedings of Natural Academy of Sciences. It was spearheaded by archaeologist Professor Johannes Müller, in collaboration with researchers from Ukraine and Moldova.

The food supply system supporting these settlements has been a source of numerous inquiries among researchers. Previously, it was understood that many small Neolithic settlements relied on subsistence farming for sustenance.

“The provisioning of the residents of the mega-sites was based on extremely sophisticated food and pasture management,” says Kiel paleoecologist Dr. Frank Schlütz, one of the authors of the study.

The modern tales of Popeye, the sailor, and his legendary strength derived from spinach are well-known to almost everyone. However, modern science has revealed that the nutritional value of spinach was overestimated. In stark contrast, peas emerge as a highly beneficial component of human nutrition due to their rich protein content. Surprisingly, the significance of peas has been greatly undervalued by scientific understanding, according to a press release by Kiel University.

Isotopic analysis provides a valuable tool for understanding the practices of maintaining domestic animals, the fertilization methods employed in cultivating crops, and the role played by plants and animals in the dietary habits of ancient societies thousands of years ago.

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SCIENTISTS ANALYZING ANCIENT SCYTHIAN ARTIFACTS HAVE MADE A GRUESOME DISCOVERY

Anthropologists studying a collection of ancient Scythian artifacts retrieved during excavations at sites in Ukraine have made a gruesome discovery, according to newly published research.

The multi-institutional team reports that two samples of the ancient Scythian artifacts in question, consisting of small bits of leather, were determined to be made from human skin. The findings, reported in PLOS ONE, confirm ancient accounts of the practices of Scythian warriors, namely those of the Greek historian Herodotus.

Largely a nomadic group who resided in the region now recognized as the Pontic-Caspian steppe between around 700 BCE and 300 BCE, the Scythians remain somewhat mysterious, despite the accounts left to history by Herodotus of their ferociousness in battle.

In The Persian Wars (book IV), the famed “Father of History” presents us with a grizzly account of the behavior of Scythian warriors regarding their fallen enemies.

“Many make themselves cloaks, like the sheepskins of our peasants,” Herodotus wrote, describing how Scythian warriors “make of the skin, which is stripped off with the nails hanging to it, a covering for their quivers.”

“Some even flay the entire body of their enemy, and, stretching it upon a frame, carry it about with them wherever they ride,” Herodotus explains. “Such are the Scythian customs with respect to scalps and skins.”

In their analysis, researchers Luise Ørsted Brandt, Meaghan Mackie, Marina Daragan, Matthew J. Collins, and Margarita Gleba sought evidence for the claims Herodotus made about the Scythians.

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Study of Ancient Teeth Shows Single Native American Migration from Asia

The analysis of human teeth recovered during archaeological excavations has remained a standard means of investigating ancient migration patterns for the last five decades. In fact, this tried-and-true methodology has produced some important new results that shed light on the Native American migration from Asia to the Americas at least 16,000 years ago.

According to newly published research appearing in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology, those ancestors left eastern Asia in one gigantic mass movement of people. This Native American migration created a genetic (and dental) unity between different Native American groups that is a reflection of their common roots in that single mass migration.

Dental Anthropology Unlocks Secrets of Native American Migration

Amazingly, dental anthropologists have been able to discover many details about human migration from studying variations in the shapes of human teeth. The teeth in question often originate from individuals who lived in a bygone era, their sole legacy now confined to skeletal remnants left behind to be analyzed by scientists.

But dental anthropologists also study the teeth of modern humans, which helps them determine how teeth have evolved over the course of thousands of years. In the course of their work, these professionals make comparisons between modern and ancient teeth in order to detect ancestral connections between the old teeth and the new (and naturally between the people who possessed those teeth).

For the purposes of this latest analysis, an international team of dental anthropologists from Europe and the United States obtained access to a web-based application/database known as rASUDAS, which allows researchers to identify the ancestry of an unidentified person based on their tooth crown and root traits.

While this forensic application can be used to identify commonalities between the teeth of ancient and modern individuals, and therefore identify ancestry of the modern person, in this case it was used to identify the ancestry of prehistoric people whose teeth had been recovered from archaeological sites in different regions of the world.

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First Americans May Have Arrived by Sea Ice Highway as Early as 24,000 Years Ago

One of the hottest debates in archaeology is how and when humans first arrived in North America. Archaeologists have traditionally argued that people walked through an ice-free corridor that briefly opened between ice sheets an estimated 13,000 years ago.

But a growing number of archaeological and genetic finds—including human footprints in New Mexico dated to around 23,000 years old—suggests that people made their way onto the continent much earlier. These early Americans likely traveled along the Pacific coastline from Beringia, the land bridge between Asia and North America that emerged during the last glacial maximum when ice sheets bound up large amounts of water causing sea levels to fall.

Now, in research presented Friday, 15 December at the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting (AGU23) in San Franciso, paleoclimate reconstructions of the Pacific Northwest hint that sea ice may have been one way for people to move farther south.

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Scientists Just Found Human Evolution’s Missing Link in Europe 

Recent fossil evidence challenges the prevailing narrative of human evolution, shifting the focus from Africa to Europe’s westernmost reaches. Conventional beliefs, rooted in the Out of Africa theory, face scrutiny as scientists suggest our last common ancestor may have resided in Europe over two million years ago. The study challenges established timelines linking Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Homo sapiens to a single ancestor, Homo heidelbergensis. The Pit of Bones in Spain, also known as Atapuerca, houses fossils dating back 800,000 years, adds complexity. Genetic analysis hints at an unknown hominin species, a potential missing link connecting Neanderthals and Denisovans.

This discovery prompts a reevaluation of the human evolutionary tree, emphasizing the enigmatic genetic makeup of these fossils. The implications extend beyond challenging preconceptions; they underscore the intricacy of unraveling our evolutionary history. The fossils, with their mysterious genetic traits, defy easy classification, leaving scientists grappling with questions that may reshape our understanding of the common ancestry shared by Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.

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Moroccan Cave Find Shows Ancient Humans Made Clothes 120,000 Years Ago

Researchers have announced the discovery of bone tools in a cave in Morocco that appear to have been used to carefully remove skins and fur from the bodies of dead animals. The skins recovered this way were apparently used to make clothing.

Such a find would not normally be considered remarkable. But these particular tools are approximately 120,000 years old, which pushes the timeframe for clothes-making practices farther back into the past than scientists would have once believed was possible. 

“These bone tools have shaping and use marks that indicate they were used for scraping hides to make leather and for scraping pelts to make fur,” anthropologist and research team leader Dr. Emily Hallett explained in a press release from science journal publisher Cell Press.

“At the same time, I found a pattern of cut marks on the carnivore bones from Contrebandiers Cave that suggested that humans were not processing carnivores for meat but were instead skinning them for their fur.”

The ancient fur and leather makers were early Homo Sapiens (modern humans), who at this point had yet to leave Africa to explore and colonize the rest of the planet. Even before the original great migration that scattered their populations across the globe, the earliest humans were showing a surprisingly sophisticated range of behaviors.

“Our study adds another piece to the long list of hallmark human behaviors that begin to appear in the archaeological record of Africa around 100,000 years ago,” stated Dr. Hallett, who along with most of the scientists involved in this research project is affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany.

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Petroglyph Discoveries Offer Breakthrough in Understanding Pueblo Culture

In a significant archaeological development, a team from the Jagiellonian University (JU) has made groundbreaking discoveries regarding the ancient Pueblo culture along the Colorado-Utah border. This Polish team, one of the few European groups active in this region, has been exploring the area for over a decade, unraveling the mysteries of the 3000-year-old Pueblo culture.

The team’s research is focused on the Castle Rock Pueblo settlement complex, located on the Mesa Verde plateau, a region renowned for its Pre-Columbian settlements and rock art. The Pueblo communities, known for their advanced building techniques and artistic creations, developed multi-story stone houses, intricate jewelry, and ceramics with distinctive black-on-white motifs.

These artistic expressions, alongside their advanced architectural and agricultural practices, reflect a rich and complex society that has left a lasting imprint on the region’s cultural heritage.

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31,000-YEAR-OLD ARTIFACTS REVEAL USE OF ADVANCED PROJECTILE WEAPON MILLENNIA EARLIER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT

A forensic examination of 31,000-year-old artifacts has revealed the potential use of advanced spearthrowers by Stone Age Europeans, according to the results of a controversial new study.

Archaeologists previously believed that spearthrowers, which are sometimes called atlatls, were first put into use sometime around 17,000 or 18,000 years ago based on evidence of their use found in European caves, primarily located in southern France.

However, the results of the recent study appear to put those original findings in doubt by showing that these advanced weapons may have been in use millennia earlier than previously believed.

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