t’s probably safe to say that few things excite archaeologists more than garbage dumps – or middens, as they are called in the trade. Even today, our trash says a lot about how we live – what we eat, what we wear, what we do for fun or work.
But it takes some really tough trash to survive 1500 years. Mostly, what archaeologists find are beads, glass and metal objects and ceramics, if they are lucky.
“Most of the time we don’t even find middens at all on sites that are older than the Mediaeval period,” Ystgaard said.
In this case, however, the team has also found lots of old animal and fish bones – mainly because the soil in the area is made from ground-up seashells, which isn’t very acidic. Normally, soil in Norway tends to be more acidic, and eats away at bones.
“Nothing like this has been examined anywhere in Norway before,” Ystgaard said.
There are enough bones to figure out what kinds of animals they came from, and how the actual animal varieties relate to today’s wild and domesticated animals, she said. The archaeologists have also found fish remains, from both salmon and cod, and the bones from seabirds, too.
Solomon said there was nothing new under the sun so why are these researchers surprised to find bling in ancient graves?
#3, http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/177362/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/Ancient-Egyptian-artefacts-discovered-in-Aswans-Ge.aspx
wo niches with six figures cut in rock in high reliefs were uncovered during a survey carried out by a Swedish archaeological mission from Lund University inside two New Kingdom Egyptian chapels named Chapel 30 and 31.
Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty described the discovery as “important,” as the Gebel Al-Silsila area was completely covered with sand and block ever since it was hit with a destructive earthquake in antiquity. Erosion elements have also impacted the area and its monuments.
Eldamaty explains that the rock-hewn figures were discovered despite Argentine Egyptologist Ricardo Caminos describing Chapel 30 as “completely destroyed.”
#4. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/151224-egypt-climate-change-old-kingdom-archaeology/
As world leaders celebrate a new agreement to limit the impact of greenhouse gases on human society, archaeologists have been taking a fresh look at one of the most dramatic instances of a civilization confronted with devastating climate change.
For nearly a millennium, Egypt’s early pharaohs presided over a prosperous and wealthy state that built countless temples and palaces, enormous public works, and the famous Giza pyramids. Much of that prosperity depended on the regular inundations of the Nile River in a country that otherwise would be only desert.
Theories go nowhere. We need the truth not someone’s subjective opinion.
#5. http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/fall-2015/article/the-mystery-of-red-deer-cave1
It was in 1989 when miners, quarrying limestone in the Maludong Cave near the city of Mengzi in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, stumbled across a cave with some curious fossils. The cave became known as Red Deer Cave, because of the fossils of giant red deer subsequently excavated at the site. But the most curious fossils discovered at the site appeared to be those of humans. Archaeologists stored these fossils away and they remained unexamined for nearly two decades. They languished in obscurity. That is, until 2008, when an international team consisting of scientists from Chinese and Australian institutions began to study them in earnest.
What the new team uncovered in their analyses would prove to be nothing less than extraordinary. Led by Associate Professor Darren Curnoe of the University of New South Wales, Australia, and Professor Ji Xueping of the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, the team identified skeletal elements of an archaic human, represented by three individuals, who sojourned in Red Deer Cave between 14,500 and 11,500 years ago. They knew the date range based on radiocarbon dating of charcoal deposits within the cave. Also present were stone tools. Whoever they were, they controlled fire and used it to process and cook the deer. Curnoe and colleagues also examined evidence of another archaic human whose remains, consisting of a similar partial skeleton found in 1979 in a cave near the village of Longlin in the neighboring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, appeared to exhibit similar characteristics.
Most likely they are pre-flood world people
#6. http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/cult-of-zeus-found-in-metropolis-.aspx?pageID=238&nid=92606
A cult area built for Zeus, the main god of the ancient Helen mythology, has been found in the ancient city of Metropolis, located in Aegean İzmir province’s Torbalı district.
According to a statement made by the Sabancı Foundation, this year’s excavations, carried out by the foundation in collaboration with the Culture and Tourism Ministry, have been completed in the ancient city.
Pieces of columns, which indicate the area was a center of worship, a piece of an altar and a sculpture pedestal have been discovered in the excavation. Detailed examinations made by the excavation teams revealed the region was a cult area dedicated to Zeus.
The excavations also revealed that the main god Zeus was mentioned with the title “Krezimos” in the ancient city of Metropolis for the first time anywhere in the world.
It is believed that Krezimos means “protective Zeus who brings abundance and wealth to Metropolis” since Krezimos, which is a unique title to Metropolis, is similar to the word “crescere,” meaning “to grow” or “cultivate” in Latin.
#7. http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/stonehenges-bluestones-were-moved-wales-10591475
It is an archaeological enigma which last week a team of experts professed to have resolved: if and how the ‘bluestones’ at Stonehenge were excavated and transported from Pembrokeshire by our prehistoric ancestors.
The team of archaeologists and geologists – led academics from University College, London, said they definitively confirmed two sites in the Preseli Hills – Carn Goedog and Craig Rhos-y-felin – had been quarried for two types of stone.
It was suggested the stones were first used in a local monument, somewhere near the quarries, that was then dismantled and dragged off to Wiltshire.But the assertions on how the stones were removed and transported, apparently leaving evidence so-called “engineering features,” have been branded “all wrong” by another team of earth scientists, in a conflicting report published today.
In a peer-reviewed paper published in the Archaeology in Wales journal, Dr Brian John, Dr Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd and John Downes say there are “no traces of human intervention in any of the features that have made the archaeologists so excited”.
The group does not accept the idea of a Neolithic quarry in the Preseli Hills and says the supposed signs of ‘quarrying’ by humans at Craig Rhos-y-Felin were entirely natural.
They also believe that the archaeologists behind the report may have inadvertently created certain features during five years of “highly selective sediment removal”.
A lack of remains does not make something ‘natural’ It may mean that they tools used were moved to another job site or rotted, eroded, rusted away.
#8. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/12/14/archaeologists-discover-elite-6th-century-ad-cavalryman-with-unique-foot-prosthesis/
In Hemmaberg, Austria, archaeologists excavating a cemetery associated with an early Medieval church discovered the remains of a middle-aged man whose left foot had been amputated. In its place, a unique foot prosthesis was found. Through analysis of the burial and the bones, the researchers tried to figure out who this man was and whether his foot was amputated for medical reasons, accidentally, or as punishment for a crime.
Heavily occupied in the Late Roman to Early Medieval periods, Hemmaberg was a site of early Christian pilgrimage due to its abundance of churches. Archaeological excavation of graves near the Church of St. Hemma and Dorothea revealed early Christian burial practices as well: east-west aligned pits with few grave goods and little evidence of clothing. But one grave in particular piqued researchers’ interest. Situated close to the church, buried with a short sword and an ornate brooch, was a man who likely died during the Frankish reign in the area, the mid- to late-6th century AD, but who had clearly survived a foot amputation.
The analysis of the skeleton, which will be published in the March issue of the International Journal of Paleopathology, was led by bioarchaeologist Michaela Binder of the Austrian Archaeological Institute (OEAI). She and her team pored over the bony evidence, and also x-rayed and CT scanned the remains, in order to learn as much as possible about this man’s life and injury. His name is lost to history, but his bones provide a wealth of information.
Again, Solomon said nothing is new.
#9. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/6000-year-old-skeletons-french-pit-came-victims-violence
A gruesome discovery in eastern France casts new light on violent conflicts that took lives — and sometimes just limbs — around 6,000 years ago.
Excavations of a 2-meter-deep circular pit in Bergheim revealed seven human skeletons plus a skull section from an infant strewn atop the remains of seven human arms, say anthropologist Fanny Chenal of Antea Archéologie in Habsheim, France, and her colleagues.
Two men, one woman and four children were killed, probably in a raid or other violent encounter, the researchers report in the December Antiquity. Their bodies were piled in a pit that already contained a collection of left arms hacked off by axes or other sharp implements. Scattered hand bones at the bottom of the pit suggest that hands from the severed limbs had been deliberately cut into pieces.
Or the mess came after they were buried created by hungry animals or some natural disaster.
#10 http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-12/10/c_134904597.htm
A rare golden colored horse might have galloped across northwestern China’s Gobi Desert 2,000 years ago, an archaeological DNA analysis has suggested.
The discovery comes after archaeologists with the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) institute of archaeology analyzed the bones of five horses from a nomad tomb complex dating back to the Western Han Dynasty (202BC–8AD) in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
“The color of the horse’s body was golden, or palomino, while its mane and tail were nearly white,” said Zhao Xin, lead researcher of the project.
“Though it’s not the first archaeological discovery of a golden horse, such genovariation is very, very rare,” she said.
