Tag: lost civilizations

These ancient whittled logs could be the earliest known wooden structure

Some 500,000 years ago in central Africa, ancient human relatives chopped down trees and transformed the wood into digging tools, wedges and what might just be the world’s earliest-known wooden structure.

Now, remnants of this ancient woodworking have been found at an archaeological site in Zambia called Kalambo Falls. Researchers can’t definitively identify the possible structure, which might have been a raised platform, a shelter or something else entirely. Whatever it was, it pre-dates the evolution of Homo sapiens by more than 100,000 years, hinting that hominins that lived long before our own species were already working wood.

Wood tends to decay quickly in the ground. If it was preserved at archaeological sites as faithfully as materials such as stone or bone, “we would probably use the term wood age rather than stone age”, says archaeologist Larry Barham at the University of Liverpool, UK. He and his colleagues describe the finds in Nature1 on 20 September.

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Manipulated Human Remains Found at Cave Site in Spain

The Iberian Peninsula witnessed a particular form of human burials in caves, which were later manipulated and modified, over thousands of years! In the southern Iberian Peninsula, this practice became common around the 4th millennium BC, though the cultural connotations for manipulating the dead are still not fully understood. A new study zeroed in on the manipulated human remains of 12 individuals from a cave called Cueva de los Marmoles, in southern Spain.

Cueva de los Marmoles: Dating and Understanding Contemporaneous Finds

Radiocarbon dating has pinpointed the burials within a fairly wide timeframe spanning from the 5th to the 2nd millennium BC. The research team meticulously recorded deliberate post-mortem alterations to the skeletal remains, which included evidence of fractures and abrasions, possibly indicating attempts to extract marrow and other tissues.

Among these modified human remains, a single tibia showed signs of adaptation for use as a tool, while an intriguing cranium appeared to have been fashioned into a ” skull cup ,” suggesting potential adaptations for dietary or practical purposes.

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Mysterious 3,800-Year-Old Canaanite Arch and Stairway Unearthed in Israel

Archaeologists have made a stunning—yet thoroughly puzzling—discovery in northern Israel: a 3,800-year-old Canaanite arch and stairway, perfectly preserved underground.

Researchers don’t know the purpose of the structure, which was unearthed at the Tel Shimron archaeological site. They also don’t understand why it was sealed off not long after its construction.

But its preservation is “breathtaking, especially since the building material is unfired (!) mud brick—a material that only rarely survives a long time,” says excavation co-director Mario A.S. Martin, an archaeologist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, in an email to Live Science’s Sascha Pare.

Archaeologists haven’t historically paid much attention to Tel Shimron. Before the current dig began in 2017, the site had never been extensively excavated. Recently, the team stumbled upon a strange structure that appeared to be man-made.

“We kept digging down further, and it was preserved at a depth of one meter, then two meters, then three meters, then four meters,” excavation co-director Daniel Master, an archaeologist at Wheaton College, tells the Times of Israel’s Melanie Lidman. “This structure was totally intact, and suddenly we realized we were dealing with the foundation of a building or a superstructure that had been constructed at the top of the site.”

The team uncovered mud brick walls up to 13 feet (4 meters) thick, reports Ariel David of Haaretz. Strangely, no rooms were found within them. Instead, the inside was made up of a long corridor—which led to the mysterious arch. Beyond it, researchers found a staircase leading deeper underground.

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Hip bone found in cave in France may represent a previously unknown lineage of Homo sapiens

A bone found in a cave by an international team of anthropologists in France may represent a previously unknown lineage of Homo sapiens. The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The Grotte du Renne is a cave in France; it has been the focus of archaeological research for several decades. Such research has shown that there are layers of historical relevance in the cave, with deeper layers representing the time period when the cave was occupied by Neanderthals and higher layers representing the time period when anatomically modern humans (AMHs) occupied the cave.

In between those layers is another that represents the time period when the two hominids may have co-existed. Stone tools found in the layer have been ascribed to an early Châtelperronian techno-cultural complex, though scholars have not been able to agree on whether they were made by Neanderthals, AMH or both. In this new effort, the research team took a new look at a bone that was excavated from the cave decades ago—a hip bone called an ilium.

The researchers found that the bone was from a newborn baby. They also believed that it was not Neanderthal. By comparing it with other Neanderthal bones and against 32 modern baby bones, they found that it did not conform to either species. Its shape was different from Neanderthal and slightly different from AMH. They noted that the odd shape fell outside the bounds of what would be considered normal variation in humans. That, they concluded, suggests the bone represents a previously unknown lineage of Homo sapiens with a morphology that is slightly different from AMH.

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AI search of Neanderthal proteins resurrects ‘extinct’ antibiotics

Bioengineers have used artificial intelligence (AI) to bring molecules back from the dead1.

To perform this molecular ‘de-extinction’, the researchers applied computational methods to data about proteins from both modern humans (Homo sapiens) and our long-extinct relatives, Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and Denisovans. This allowed the authors to identify molecules that can kill disease-causing bacteria — and that could inspire new drugs to treat human infections.

“We’re motivated by the notion of bringing back molecules from the past to address problems that we have today,” says Cesar de la Fuente, a co-author of the study and a bioengineer at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The study was published on 28 July in Cell Host & Microbe1.

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Luzio, who lived in São Paulo 10,000 years ago, was Amerindian like Indigenous people now, DNA reveals

An article published on July 31 in Nature Ecology & Evolution reveals that Luzio, the oldest human skeleton found in São Paulo state (Brazil), was a descendant of the ancestral population that settled the Americas at least 16,000 years ago and gave rise to all present-day Indigenous peoples, such as the Tupi.

Based on the largest set of Brazilian archaeological genomic data, the study reported in the article also offers an explanation for the disappearance of the oldest coastal communities, the residents of which built the icons of Brazilian archaeology known as “sambaquis,” huge mounds of shells and fishbones used as dwellings, cemeteries and territorial boundaries. Archaeologists often refer to these monuments as shell mounds or kitchen middens.

“After the Andean civilizations, the Atlantic coast sambaqui builders were the human phenomenon with the highest demographic density in pre-colonial South America. They were the ‘kings of the coast’ for thousands and thousands of years. They vanished suddenly about 2,000 years ago,” said André Menezes Strauss, an archaeologist at the University of São Paulo’s Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (MAE-USP) and principal investigator for the study.

The authors analyzed the genomes of 34 samples from four different areas of Brazil’s coast. The fossils were at least 10,000 years old. They came from sambaquis and other parts of eight sites (Cabeçuda, Capelinha, Cubatão, Limão, Jabuticabeira II, Palmeiras Xingu, Pedra do Alexandre and Vau Una).

This material included Luzio, São Paulo’s oldest skeleton, found in the Capelinha river midden in the Ribeira de Iguape valley by a group led by Levy Figuti, a professor at MAE-USP. The morphology of its skull is similar to that of Luzia, the oldest human fossil found to date in South America, dating from about 13,000 years ago. The researchers thought it might have belonged to a biologically different population from present-day Amerindians, who settled in what is now Brazil some 14,000 years ago, but it turns out they were mistaken.

“Genetic analysis showed Luzio to be an Amerindian, like the Tupi, Quechua or Cherokee. That doesn’t mean they’re all the same, but from a global perspective, they all derive from a single migratory wave that arrived in the Americas not more than 16,000 years ago. If there was another population here 30,000 years ago, it didn’t leave descendants among these groups,” Strauss said.

Luzio’s DNA also answered another question. River middens are different from coastal ones, so the find cannot be considered a direct ancestor of the huge classical sambaquis that appeared later. This discovery suggests there were two distinct migrations—into the hinterland and along the coast.

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Two Megalithic Bronze Age Dolmens Excavated in Southern Spain

La Lentejuela Teba necropolis, near Malaga in southern Spain, captivated historians and archaeologists when it was first discovered in 2005. Dating back to 4,000 BC, this ancient burial site was later reused in the Bronze Age between 2200 BC and 800 BC.

Since it was first unearthed, 13 stone structures and over 100 tombs have revealed a wealth of artifacts, including pottery, jewelry and tools, providing valuable insights into the burial practices and daily lives of its inhabitants.

But now, a team of researchers from the University of Cadiz (UCA) has been working to find out more about two megalithic Bronze Age dolmens discovered at the same site. Having been originally built over 6,000 years ago, the pair of ancient burial portals were rebuilt in the Bronze Age and used to enshrine the bodies of societal elites.

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Swiss Scientists Identify Bronze Age Iron Arrowhead Made from a Meteorite!

A team of scientists recently completed a study of prehistoric metal artifacts collected in Switzerland over the past couple of centuries, with a very clear purpose in mind. They were looking to see if any of these ancient artifacts might have been made from metal salvaged from meteorites, which have been hitting Earth for billions of years . Much to their delight, the Swiss researchers were able to identify one such object: a small, rusted Bronze Age iron arrowhead with a chemical and mineral composition that was undoubtedly not of earthly origin.

As a part of their search process, the team of Swiss scientists led by geologist Beda Hofmann from the National History Museum of Bern concentrated on pre-Iron Age artifacts taken from various sites close to Switzerland’s Lake of Biel region. The one iron arrowhead made from meteoritic metal they did find was excavated from a Late Bronze Age (900 to 700 BC) settlement known as Mörigen, from where it had been unearthed all the way back in the 19th century.

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Bronze age ritual cemetery discovered at planned spaceport in Shetland

A bronze age ritual cremation cemetery has been discovered by archaeologists working at a planned spaceport in Scotland.

The discovery was made at the SaxaVord spaceport site on the Lamba Ness peninsula in Unst, Shetland while foundation work was carried out.

It is believed the remains are from a bronze age ritual cremation cemetery after pits, large boulders and cremations were uncovered alongside a quartz setting, which is generally associated with prehistoric burial tombs.

Excavation is still in its early stages, but archaeologists believe the remains date to between 2200-1800 BC.

The discovery will offer archaeologists a fresh opportunity to study prehistoric inhabitants of Shetland, and will not hold back the development of the spaceport.

Shetland’s regional archaeologist, Dr Val Hunter, said: “I’ve always suspected that some of Shetland’s rings of boulders and low stones found could in fact be bronze age cremation cemeteries, so it is hugely exciting to be proved right.

“The bronze age is perhaps the period of Shetland’s past which we know least about and this is a wonderful opportunity to change that. With the modern techniques available now, we can potentially find out far more about the individuals who lived and died here than we could have discovered even 20 years ago.

“Hats off to the archaeologists from AOC who spotted this in the watching brief.”

The discovery was welcomed by SaxaVord chief executive Frank Strang, who said the spaceport would work with archaeologists in their excavation.

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When Did Humans Start Settling Down?

Twelve thousand years ago, long before the beginning of recorded history, a group of perhaps 200 people lived in a small village by a stream flowing into the Sea of Galilee, in what today is northern Israel. The villagers hunted gazelle and hares, fished for carp, built stone houses, and buried their dead in a cemetery next to their homes. When I hiked to the site early one morning, it was easy to imagine them: A few figures setting off with nets to the lakeshore, others walking toward the hills with bows and arrows to look for game, and more down by the riverbank, spinning thread or crushing barley, shooing children out of the way—a community waking up together and getting to work, unaware of their position at the dawn of a new age.

I came to the village with Leore Grosman, an archaeologist from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. We turned up a dirt track off the two-lane road that circles the Sea of Galilee. On the far shore, across five miles of placid water, lights in the city of Tiberias were blinking off. The sun wasn’t quite up, but the caffeine was kicking in. Grosman lit a cigarette and told me about herself in a gravelly voice. She started out studying math, then moved to Egyptology. She loved hieroglyphics. “But it’s a lot of sitting in libraries, and it’s a matter of personality,” she said. “I need to be outside.” She began digging here in 2010 with a feeling that the site, known as Nahal Ein Gev II, had something to say about a great change in the human story. She has returned each summer since.

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