Archaeological News

[bojan]

Most will be barely recognized ruins by that time, as most were very crappily built, w/o steel reinforcements and with sub-par concrete.

[MiloMorai]

Napoleon Bonaparte's general believed unearthed in Russia

A one-legged skeleton unearthed by a team of archaeologists is believed to be one of Napoleon Bonaparte's generals, Charles-Etienne Gudin, according to a French historian and former soldier.

A team of French and Russian archaeologists discovered the 200-year-old skeleton in July during an excavation in the Russian city of Smolensk, which lies about 250 miles west of Moscow.

​

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/napoleon-bonapartes-general-believed-unearthed-in-russia/ar-BBWq0Zm?ocid=spartandhp

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

We never forgot about Rome, and yet, by the time they started digging out the forum, it was already buried 12m under then then current level.

 

The people of rome have happily plndered the old buildings for building materials. IIRC one of the medieval city walls was largely built from old temples.

 

 

Just like you can still find clay bricks stamped by Hammurabi in some quarters of Baghdad. Or parts of the great walls in China have been recycled by local farmers for their houses.

 

Hhmmm, any old European bunkers being used for homes? Maginot Line perhaps?

 

 

There was a flakbunker in Hamburg which got converted to commercial use IIRC.

[Mobius]

Interesting story of early mosques fasing Petra not current Mecca.

He takes awhile to get going.

There is an online tool that combines with Google earth to point to early mosques and the direction their qibla points.

[Colin]

Yes I saw that, very interesting work.

[Panzermann]

The Vikings erected a runestone out of fear of a climate catastrophe

 

 

 

Several passages on the Rök stone – the world’s most famous Viking Age runic monument – suggest that the inscription is about battles and for over a hundred years, researchers have been trying to connect the inscription with heroic deeds in war. Now, thanks to an interdisciplinary research project, a new interpretation of the inscription is being presented. The study shows that the inscription deals with an entirely different kind of battle: the conflict between light and darkness, warmth and cold, life and death.

 

 

The Rök runestone, erected in Östergötland around 800 CE, is the world's most famous runestone from the Viking Age, but has also proven to be one of the most difficult to interpret. This new interpretation is based on a collaboration between researchers from several disciplines and universities.

“The key to unlocking the inscription was the interdisciplinary approach. Without these collaborations between textual analysis, archaeology, history of religions and runology, it would have been impossible to solve the riddles of the Rök runestone,” says Per Holmberg, professor in Swedish at the University of Gothenburg, who led the study.

A previous climate catastrophe

The study is based on new archaeological research describing how badly Scandinavia suffered from a previous climate catastrophe with lower average temperatures, crop failures, hunger and mass extinctions. Bo Gräslund, professor in Archaeology at Uppsala University, points to several reasons why people may have feared a new catastrophe of this kind:

“Before the Rök runestone was erected, a number of events occurred which must have seemed extremely ominous: a powerful solar storm coloured the sky in dramatic shades of red, crop yields suffered from an extremely cold summer, and later a solar eclipse occurred just after sunrise. Even one of these events would have been enough to raise fears of another Fimbulwinter,” says Bo Gräslund.

Nine riddles

According to the researchers’ new interpretation now being published, the inscription consists of nine riddles. The answer to five of these riddles is “the Sun”. One is a riddle asking who was dead but now lives again. The remaining four riddles are about Odin and his warriors.

Olof Sundqvist, professor in History of Religions at Stockholm University, explains the connection:

“The powerful elite of the Viking Age saw themselves as guarantors for good harvests. They were the leaders of the cult that held together the fragile balance between light and darkness. And finally at Ragnarök, they would fight alongside Odin in the final battle for the light.”

Parallels with other Old Norse texts

According to the researchers, several points in the inscription have clear parallels with other Old Norse texts that no one has previously noted.

“For me, it’s been almost like discovering a new literary source from the Viking Age. Sweden’s answer to the Icelandic Poetic Edda!” says Henrik Williams, professor in Scandinavian Languages with a specialty in Runology at Uppsala University.

 

from: https://hum.gu.se/english/current/news/Nyhet_detalj//the-vikings-erected-a-runestone-out-of-fear-of-a-climate-catastrophe.cid1669170

[Panzermann]

If you want to hear it: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rök_runestone_interpretation_2020.opus

[Adam Peter]

How it is related in time to Grönland turning not so green?

[Stuart Galbraith]

A good name for it would be the Thunberg Rune.

[Adam Peter]

A good name for it would be the Thunberg Rune.

[lastdingo]

They feared long winter, and the climate did cool and cause them great trouble. They were kinda right (and long or triple-long winter is part of other Norse world's end mythology).

 

That was long before industrialisation and people digging fossil for fuels on a grand scale.

[Panzermann]

They feared long winter, and the climate did cool and cause them great trouble. They were kinda right (and long or triple-long winter is part of other Norse world's end mythology).

 

That was long before industrialisation and people digging fossil for fuels on a grand scale.

 

 

One unusually harsh winter was enough to cause a catastrophe. It was really hard living up north. so if the stone refers to the general fear of a bad winter or some specific event is hard to say.

Edited January 13, 2020 by Panzermann

[lucklucky]

Lumiere Brothers 1896 video upscaled to 4K

 

[lucklucky]

Color version

[Ivanhoe]

Just to put coronavirus in perspective;

 

https://phys.org/news/2020-03-evidence-cosmic-impact-destruction-world.html

 

Abu Hureyra, it turns out, has another story to tell. Found among the cereals and grains and splashed on early building material and animal bones was meltglass, some features of which suggest it was formed at extremely high temperatures—far higher than what humans could achieve at the time—or that could be attributed to fire, lighting or volcanism.

 

"To help with perspective, such high temperatures would completely melt an automobile in less than a minute," said James Kennett, a UC Santa Barbara emeritus professor of geology. Such intensity, he added, could only have resulted from an extremely violent, high-energy, high-velocity phenomenon, something on the order of a cosmic impact.

 

Based on materials collected before the site was flooded, Kennett and his colleagues contend Abu Hureyra is the first site to document the direct effects of a fragmented comet on a human settlement. These fragments are all part of the same comet that likely slammed into Earth and exploded in the atmosphere at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, according to Kennett. This impact contributed to the extinction of most large animals, including mammoths, and American horses and camels; the disappearance of the North American Clovis culture; and to the abrupt onset of the end-glacial Younger Dryas cooling episode.

 

 

[Adam Peter]

https://www.facebook.com/archeoserbia/posts/2486123098366101

 

 

Ancient fleet discovered in Serbia!

What a discovery! This year has started great for Serbian archaeologists – they have found remains of ancient fleet, consisting of several ships, at remains of ancient Roman town Viminacium in eastern Serbia. No clues for now from which period ships originate, since there are no objects which could indicate when they were made.

Ships were found 2 days ago in the deposits of clay and mud, which sealed wooden vessels preserving them perfectly.

Largest ship is 15 meters long, and it was found 7 meters below the surface. That is several meters below the oldest Roman remains at this site, which indicates that these ships could be predating Roman times. Wood samples are taken and send to carbon dating.

For now, there are several types of ships – large ships, some similar to Roman warships, small boats… but, archaeologists are confused, since they haven’t found any object for everyday use by now, which could help in dating the fleet.

Ships were found during coal mining, since the whole area of ancient Viminacium is located above the massive coal deposits and on the way of always growing coal-fired power station. Every day large machines are digging coal, and some of the most interesting archaeological discoveries in Serbia were made during those works. Unfortunately, most of the Viminacium archaeological area will disappear because of coal mining.

I hope that in the following weeks more will be known about this mysterious ancient fleet

//

Godina je počela odlično za srpske arheologe – u noći između petka i subote, tokom redovnih radova na iskopavanju uglja u neposrednoj blizini antičkog Viminacijuma u istočnoj Srbiji, otkriveni su ostaci drevne flote brodova I čamaca.

Za sada nije poznato iz kojeg perioda potiču plovila, a radovi na daljim iskopavanjima su u toku. Brodovi u čamci su pronađeni na dubini od 7 i više metara, što je znatno dublje od najstarijih rimskih kulturnij slojeva na ovom području.

U priloženom tekstu pročitajte više o ovom zanimljivom oktriću

https://www.novosti.rs/vesti/naslovna/reportaze/aktuelno.293.html:853133-Viminacijska-flota-izronila-iz-ugljenokopa-Senzacionalno-otkrice-kod-Kostolca

Foto - Boris Subašić

[Yama]

Earliest evidence for humans in the Americas

 

Humans settled in the Americas much earlier than previously thought, according to new finds from Mexico.

 

They suggest people were living there 33,000 years ago, twice the widely accepted age for the earliest settlement of the Americas.

 

The results are based on work at Chiquihuite Cave, a high-altitude rock shelter in central Mexico.

 

Archaeologists found nearly 2,000 stone tools, suggesting the cave was used by people for at least 20,000 years.

 

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This is very interesting find. Old 'Clovis first' settlement model was already dead, but before this, widely accepted finds were dated only about 1000, at best 2000 years older than Clovis culture. There is a site from Alaska which is over 20,000 years old, but it was thought to be glacial 'refuge' where people could not spread southward before glaciers melted.

 

There have been discoveries reported which are in same age bracket as Chiquihuite finds, but they have not been this well documented.

 

This would also mean that the 'Blitzkrieg hypothesis' for Pleistocene extinctions is, well, extinct.

Edited July 23, 2020 by Yama

[Ivanhoe]

Awesome find, Yama!

 

That oughta start a vigorous brawl amongst the anthros.

[Mobius]

Earliest evidence for humans in the Americas

 

Humans settled in the Americas much earlier than previously thought, according to new finds from Mexico.

 

They suggest people were living there 33,000 years ago, twice the widely accepted age for the earliest settlement of the Americas.

 

The results are based on work at Chiquihuite Cave, a high-altitude rock shelter in central Mexico.

 

Archaeologists found nearly 2,000 stone tools, suggesting the cave was used by people for at least 20,000 years.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

This is very interesting find. Old 'Clovis first' settlement model was already dead, but before this, widely accepted finds were dated only about 1000, at best 2000 years older than Clovis culture. There is a site from Alaska which is over 20,000 years old, but it was thought to be glacial 'refuge' where people could not spread southward before glaciers melted.

 

There have been discoveries reported which are in same age bracket as Chiquihuite finds, but they have not been this well documented.

 

This would also mean that the 'Blitzkrieg hypothesis' for Pleistocene extinctions is, well, extinct.

It is the BBC after all.

[MiloMorai]

Chiquihuite Cave abstract: The initial colonization of the Americas remains a highly debated topic, and the exact timing of the first arrivals is unknown. The earliest archaeological record of Mexico—which holds a key geographical position in the Americas—is poorly known and understudied. Historically, the region has remained on the periphery of research focused on the first American populations. However, recent investigations provide reliable evidence of a human presence in the northwest region of Mexico, the Chiapas Highlands, Central Mexico, and the Caribbean coast during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene epochs. Here we present results of recent excavations at Chiquihuite Cave—a high-altitude site in central-northern Mexico—that corroborate previous findings in the Americas10–17of cultural evidence that dates to the Last Glacial Maximum (26,500–19,000 years ago)18, and which push back dates for human dispersal to the region possibly as early as 33,000–31,000 years ago. The site yielded about 1,900 stone artifacts within a 3-m-deep stratified sequence, revealing a previously unknown lithic industry that underwent only minor changes over millennia. More than 50 radiocarbon and luminescence dates provide chronological control, and genetic, palaeoenvironmental, and chemical data document the changing environments in which the occupants lived. Our results provide new evidence for the antiquity of humans in the Americas, illustrate the cultural diversity of the earliest dispersal groups (which predate those of the Clovis culture), and open new directions of research.

Earliest human arrivals abstract: The peopling of the Americas marks a major expansion of humans across the planet. However, questions regarding the timing and mechanisms of this dispersal remain, and the previously accepted model (termed ‘Clovis-first’)—suggesting that the first inhabitants of the Americas were linked with the Clovis tradition, a complex marked by distinctive fluted lithic points has been effectively refuted. Here we analyze chronometric data from North American and Beringian archaeological sites using a Bayesian age modeling approach and use the resulting chronological framework to elucidate spatiotemporal patterns of human dispersal. We then integrate these patterns with the available genetic and climatic evidence. The data obtained show that humans were probably present before, during and immediately after the Last Glacial Maximum (about 26.5–19 thousand years ago) but that more widespread occupation began during a period of abrupt warming, Greenland Interstadial 1 (about 14.7–12.9 thousand years before ad 2000). We also identify the near-synchronous commencement of Beringian, Clovis, and Western Stemmed cultural traditions and an overlap of each with the last dates for the appearance of now-extinct faunal genera. Our analysis suggests that the widespread expansion of humans through North America was a key factor in the extinction of large terrestrial mammals.

https://www.inverse.com/science/chiquihuite-cave

[Ivanhoe]

https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/08/05/Native-American-stone-tool-technology-unearthed-in-Yemen-Oman/4961596654994/

 

Aug. 5 (UPI) -- Archaeologists recently discovered 8,000-year-old stone fluted points on the Arabian Peninsula, the same technology developed by Native Americans 13,000 years ago, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.

 

When the stone tools were first unearthed, researchers suspected there was something familiar about them. Scientists took note of the flute-like grooves texturing the sides of the stone points.

 

The tools examined for the study were found in Manayzah in Yemen and Ad-Dahariz in Oman, researchers said.

 

"We recognized this technique as ... probably the most famous of the prehistoric techniques used in the American continent," lead researcher Remy Crassard, head of archaeology at the French Center for Archaeology and Social Sciences, told UPI. "It took us little time to recognize it, but it took us more time to understand why fluting was present in Arabia."

 

For nearly a century, archaeologists have been uncovering evidence of fluted point technology at Native American sites dating between 10,000 and 13,000 years old.

 

Stone fluted points in the Americas are typically characterized by markings along the bases of spearpoints and blades. In Arabia, the fluting appeared closer to the tips of the ancient stone points.

 

 

Parallel development, or evidence of Stargates. You decide.

[lucklucky]

Many developments were concurrent.

[Mobius]

Archaeologists have made a first-of-its-kind discovery in Israel. Chemical traces of cannabis were found on what appears to be an altar used in Israelite worship. What do these finds mean for the credibility of the biblical account? How do the moral issues brought up by this discovery stretch all the way back to the Book of Genesis?

https://patternsofevidence.com/2020/08/07/cannabis-use-in-israelite-worship/?inf_contact_key=d46d6868a25da3cbc14c5ba1771e856b842e902fbefb79ab9abae13bfcb46658

 

New meaning of Moses seeing God in a cloud of smoke by day.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Mobius

[Rick]

Ancient ingenuity

 

[Adam Peter]

1,000-Year-Old Precursor to Stainless Steel Found in Iran, Surprising Archaeologists

 

Quote

Chromium steel, commonly referred to as stainless steel, is thought to be a recent manufacturing innovation, but new evidence suggests ancient Persians stumbled upon an early version of this alloy some 1,000 years ago, in what is a surprise to archaeologists.

Ancient Persians were forging alloys made from chromium steel as early as the 11th century CE, according to new research published today in the Journal of Archaeological Science. This steel was likely used to produce swords, daggers, armor, and other items, but these metals also contained phosphorus, which made them fragile.